It's Kind of a Funny Story
by deathsteel
Summary: After an aborted suicide attempt lands Castiel Shurley in the hospital, he meets Dean Winchester, a charming damaged young man who is much more than first meets the eye. Not being able to deal with the stress of growing up may have gotten him here, but Castiel soon learns that sometimes it takes going a little crazy to find the path you were always meant to be on. Movie AU
1. Chapter 1

It wasn't the first time that Castiel had thought about killing himself, it wasn't even the second or the fifth or the twentieth. But usually it was a fleeting thought, something along the lines of 'Oh my god, I will just kill myself if I don't pass this test' that he didn't really mean and he would forget about almost as soon as he was reassured by his dad over the phone or one of his few friends that he studied enough and put so much effort into school that he had nothing to worry about.

When he dreamt about doing it, it was always the same dream. Castiel was standing on the railing of the Brooklyn Bridge, a lucid part that remembered the details when he woke up would provide that he was probably on his way either to or from school since his faded, vintage Schwinn was always leaned up near where he was standing and the only places he went anymore seemed to be the NYU campus and his apartment. Someone always stopped him, someone who cared. One of his old therapists once said that if you had one person who you could think of to live for then you really didn't want to kill yourself.

Usually in his dreams it was his dad or one of his siblings talking him down from the edge. Chuck fretting and worrying over his son, running his hands through his hair in that way that Castiel knew he had picked up from his dad, Gabriel using snarky comments ("What about your bike, Cassie? I wanted that bike.") and calling him a moron in that way that everyone close to his older brother knew meant he cared, Michael being stern in a way their father never could as he told him to get down or he would make sure the reference letters that Castiel wanted for grad school never made it to the admissions offices, Anna asking him softly and gently to think about what he was doing with those big, innocent eyes she had that got her everything she wanted.

Every now and then it would be Meg or Balthazar, his friends always together and unknowingly flaunting their perfect relationship in front of him, begging him to reconsider because it was really hard to find a roommate who wasn't a totally weirdo junkie in Brooklyn these days.

But this time, when he woke up from the dream he couldn't remember who it had been to talk him down and as he sat on the balcony of his apartment watching the sun rise over the jumbled, messy city skyline, drinking coffee and toeing at Meg's discarded cigarette butts, Castiel realized that this time there hadn't been anyone there to stop him. That this time the dream had ended with him actually hitting the steel gray, icy water of the East River and sinking, pockets full of something heavy to weigh him down even though he wasn't a very good swimmer to begin with. He had read somewhere once, probably for a paper or something that drowning was the most peaceful way to die so that's what he had always imagined doing.

After realizing that, Castiel got up, went about his normal routine like it was just another day. Like he was going up to campus to meet his GRE study group or to do some homework at the coffee shop near the library that was always quiet on the Sunday mornings after Meg stayed over. He liked to leave early on those days because it was weird for him to see the other girl walking around his and Balthazar's apartment in just the other man's V-neck shirts that were too large for her, but not large enough to provide full coverage when she would stretch up on tiptoe to reach the coffee mugs they kept on the top shelves in the cabinet.

Once he had seen a glimpse of smooth rounded flesh and red lacy material before the woman had spun around to snatch up the coffee pot, smiling cheerily at him like he hadn't just suddenly gotten the most lightening fast erection of his life. Ever since then he had made a point to be out of the apartment long before Meg or Balthazar woke up and if the pair noticed his absence then they either appreciated the fact that he gave them their privacy or they didn't care what he was doing.

He tossed his messenger bag which was heavy with half-written essays and blank applications for summer internships over his shoulder, pulled up the sleeves of his cardigan that he had decided to wear since the March weather was still nippy and took one last look around his apartment before setting off. Almost four years in the dwelling and it still felt like it belonged more to Balthazar than it did him and once during a party, someone had asked him who the enigmatic Brit's lucky roommate was and hadn't seemed very convinced when Castiel replied that he was it. Most people looked supremely unimpressed when they met him, especially when they learned who his family was and how little he had done to earn the name that had been given to him when he was adopted at age two.

Castiel took his normal route towards the school, cutting down the side streets and back alleys of DUMBO in order to reach the Brooklyn Bridge and the pedestrian walkway that spanned the length of the metal structure. As he rode, he wondered if anyone would miss him and how long it would take for Balthazar to notice that he was gone. It would probably take them running out of tea or milk or something since the foreigner didn't like to go grocery shopping, but Castiel had just gone a couple of days before so it would still probably take his closest friend a while to piece together what had happened.

He stopped in the middle of the bridge, at the spot where the water ran the swiftest and the deepest and just looked for a couple of minutes as he tried to sort out his feelings. But that was another part of the problem, besides the insomnia and the stress and the nausea and the constant crushing pressure of all of his responsibilities, Castiel hadn't felt much of anything lately. It was like he was covered in a heavy, wet blanket that just muffled the world and all of its sensations, the good and the bad until they all just bled together into one great big pile of grayish mush.

Even sitting with Meg pressed close against him last night as they had watched a movie on the couch, waiting for Balthazar to get home from a late seminar that he had, hadn't filled him with the usual thrill he got from being close to the small, assertive brunette. It had just left him feeling cold and empty and awkwardly hard, he hoped that was a good sign. People who were dead inside didn't get boners still, right?

His phone rang from inside his pocket, trumpeting out 'Paperback Writer' by The Beatles and letting him know without looking that it was his dad calling him. Weird, Chuck normally wasn't up this early on Sundays, he used to bat away Castiel's mom on mornings when she was trying to rouse the older man to go to church, saying if God wanted him to get up then he needed to come down and drag him out of bed himself.

Castiel pulled it out, steeling himself for an awkward, cryptic goodbye to his father that could act as his suicide note since he hadn't thought about leaving one behind until just now.

"Hello?" the younger man answered, pushing his glasses back up his nose as he continued to look down at the white-capped water rushing by underneath his feet.

"_Castiel? Are you okay?"_ Chuck's voice was worried and confused and for a second his youngest son assumed that maybe something had happened with his little sister, Anna. Maybe she had twisted an ankle or something and would have to sit out the end of the year production that her ballet school put on.

"Yea, dad," he replied looking up at the horizon where he could see the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, the ferries already making the endless circuit between the tourist sites despite the early hour. "I'm fine. What's going on?'

"_Your mother was worried about you," _his father explained, making Castiel's heart squeeze painfully in his chest. _"I told her I would call to check on you, she says she misses you."_

Castiel cleared his throat, turning his back against the railing so that he faced the pedestrian walkway that he was riding on. His gaze fell on the love locks that were hooked to the suspension cables and he tried not to think about how Meg and Balthazar had put their own lock on the bridge last year when they all had been riding back from a concert, stopping and kissing in the middle of the bridge while he shuffled his feet and tried to fight back the swell of jealousy he felt. The one his mom and dad had put on when they were dating had been cut off by the city years ago and the idea to do it had been his before he let it slip to Balth how romantic and grand he thought the whole gesture was.

"Mom's dead, dad." Castiel choked out, hoping that Gabriel would burst into the call right about now, laughing over how easy it was to pull one over on him.

"_I know that, son." _Chuck groused at him through the phone, sounding insulted that his son had felt the need to remind him. _"But I still talk to her and she talks back. The way that woman carries on sometimes, you'd think someone was about to die or something. Anyway, I told her I'd call. She wanted me to tell you that we all love you and to keep riding, you'll know when to stop."_

"Keep riding?" Castiel asked, his skin prickling with goosebumps.

"_Yea, are you on a horse or something? Maybe she means you should take a vacation to a ranch. You know she always loved horses. When does spring break start anyway, isn't that coming up? "_

"Uh," the younger boy searched for something he could say to his father, this conversation was just too weird to be real; he had to still be dreaming. "Yea, spring break is this next week, dad. I think I may be too busy to take a vacation, y'know papers and stuff. I have to go, though. I was just about to do something before you called."

"_Of course, all of my brilliant children are just too busy to talk to their tottering old dad. At least I still have Anna trapped for another year before she abandons me too."_

"I love you, dad." Castiel blurted, turning back to the water and hefting his heavy bag onto his shoulder. "You and mom, you know that right?"

"_Of course we do, champ. It would just be nice to get a phone call every now and then. You want me to pass the message on to your sister too?"_

"Yea, her and Gabe and Mike. Tell them all that I love them. I gotta go now, dad."

"_Alright, Castiel. Call me if you need any help with those papers, I'll give you some big fancy writer words to use. Bye, kiddo."_

"Goodbye, dad." Castiel said softly as he disconnected the call.

He watched the water for a little bit longer, absently stroking the cracked screen on his phone and wondering if this was the right thing to do. Everything was just so overwhelming and the GRE was looming over him like this giant tidal wave that was going to crush him. It was this intense pressure on his chest that made it hard for him to breathe or eat or swallow. He had lost weight over the course of the last year and even though Meg joked, saying that sallow was a good look for him Castiel didn't know how much longer he could go without sleeping before exhaustion alone made him keel over.

It was the guilt that got to him and made him move, always the guilt. Ever since his mother had died it had come to dictate his every move, dominating his decisions of what he should do with his life and making him question every single thought that he had for the last year. It had never been as hard when she was still alive, telling him that he was special no matter what he did and saying that he didn't have to prove anything to anyone by running himself ragged in an effort to compete with his siblings' successes.

He got back on his bike and rode, going back the way he came over the bridge and down the bike lanes. Castiel didn't know where he was going, but something made him trust that he would know when to stop, just like his dad had said he would. He didn't really believe that the advice had come from his mom, his parents had shared a very profound bond, but Castiel didn't think it went much further than them being able to finish each others' sentences or read the other's moods. It certainly didn't extend to being able to communicate after death, no matter how long they had been together.

Castiel meandered through Hillside Park, passing by the playground where mom's were bringing out their excited children, little half-formed versions of himself and his siblings and his friends that hadn't been jaded by everything that life threw at them yet. He missed the days when he was a kid and life had been so blissfully ignorant and easy, back before school and dating and growing up became the questions that everyone asked him about, instead of just "How old are you, sweetie?"

After about fifteen minutes of riding aimlessly, he stopped his bike with a screech. The melody that he always had going in his head had reached a crescendo, something that hadn't happened with the music he made up as he rode in a very long time. Back before he had started obsessing over all of the choices he had made in his life thus far, comparing his failings against the triumphs of everyone else in his family and Balthazar who was pre-med.

Doctors were so much cooler than accountants, no one ever listened after he said something about math, they just looked at him like he was speaking a foreign language. Castiel even bored himself sometimes with it all, most of the time he just guessed on his final answers and got lucky. This last semester, his luck had started to run out.

The music was swirling, reaching a cacophonous state in his head as he locked up his bike at the bike rack and made his way towards the sliding glass doors of the emergency room. Long Island College Hospital was quintessentially Brooklyn in its appearance, all red brick and iron gates, imposing and professional without being gaudy like the shiny hospitals in Manhattan, those buildings looked like something designed by Frank Lloyd Wright with crazy angles and lots of brushed steel and glass.

He strode up to the reception desk where a bored looking brunette girl was chatting idly on the phone and filing her nails.

"So I just told her, girl you deserve better than that loser. Dude's a total scrub. You don't need a man to tell you how to live your life."

Castiel didn't know how to interrupt without being rude so he just resigned himself to standing there until she noticed him, his stomach clenching anxiously as he bit the inside of his cheek to keep himself from screaming. After about ten minutes of being ignored he leaned farther over the desk so that he could make out the name on the girl's name tag.

"Excuse me? Krissy is it?" He said softly, giving her a little wave and a nonexistent smile in an effort to get her attention.

"Hold on," the girl said with a sigh into the phone, rolling her eyes at something the other person said. "Yea, I know. How can I help you sir?"

"Um, yes." Castiel said fidgeting with his glasses that had started slipping off his face as he broke out in one of the unexpected cold sweats he had started experiencing over the last couple of weeks. "I uh…I want to kill myself."


	2. Chapter 2

Krissy just looked blankly at Castiel for a moment before sighing and handing him a clipboard with several blank forms attached to it.

"Fill this out." She said blandly before turning back to her phone call. "So now, she's sleeping on my couch, eating all of my ice cream, and scaring my boyfriend with her crying. Yes, I'm still seeing that Canadian guy…"

Castiel stared at the clipboard in his hand like it was a foreign object, clearing his throat and adjusting his bag on his shoulder again.

"I said I want to kill myself." He repeated, like that the girl hadn't heard him correctly the first time. The last thing he wanted to do was fill out another application for something.

"Yea, I heard you." The girl replied snappishly as she tucked the receiver up under her chin and picked her nail file back up. "But you still have to fill those out. No forms. No doctors. Thems the rules."

He swallowed hard, fighting back the burnt coffee tasting bile that had risen up in his throat and turned to survey the waiting room. It smelled like disinfectant and vomit, scents that were familiar to him now that he couldn't seem to hold down more than black coffee and every now and then the cinnamon toast that his mom used to make him when he was sick. It wasn't as good when he made it and it always sat heavily in his stomach when he was doing homework or in class until he had to rush to the bathroom when it eventually came up.

It had hard looking red plastic chairs that were just as uncomfortable as he had expected them to be, pushing painfully into the base of his spine when he sat down and situated his messenger bag in between his knees. Castiel sighed and started on the forms, wiping a hand across his forehead as he filled in the blanks for his family history, as much as he knew anyway since his birth parents were a complete mystery. The only thing he knew for sure was that he probably wouldn't get cancer like his mom had; none of his siblings would get cancer. That thought just made the guilt worse, causing his hands to shake when he turned in the completed forms to an apathetic Krissy and sitting back down with his head lolling back until it clunked on the plastic behind him.

The ticking clock in the waiting room was so loud in the mostly empty space. It made his eyes throb and pulse in time with the noise so he shut them, to block out the fluorescent lighting and the way that that creepy little girl across from him was staring at him while her mom flipped idly through an outdated magazine and rolled her eyes at her husband who as groaning softly in pain beside her, clutching at his side even though Castiel couldn't see what was wrong with him. But it's not like anyone could just look at him and see the mess that was inside his head so he gave the guy the benefit of the doubt.

He looked up when a body dropped heavily into the seat beside him, sighing loudly. It was a girl in surgical scrubs and long white doctor's coat, her red hair was pulled up in a messy bun and she was pretty in a way that completely different than Meg was, this girl was pale and willowy kind of like his younger sister and she was idly munching on a package of trail mix, the kind that you get out of vending machines. She nodded at Castiel in greeting when she noticed he was watching her.

"How's it going, man?" She asked holding her bag of trail mix out towards him. "What some?"

"No thanks," Castiel replied, tugging uncomfortably on his cardigan as he sat up straighter.

Girl's just didn't talk to him, not when there were other options for them, but then again he was in an emergency room and not visibly gushing blood or other body fluids so he figured that gave him a leg up on any other competition that may be sulking around.

"What's wrong with you?" The girl asked, tossing up a peanut and trying to catch it in her mouth and shrugging a bit when it bounced off her forehead.

"I'm just not hungry." He replied watching as she stuck her tongue out at the creepy little girl and dug around in the packaging to pull out the M&Ms that were lurking inside.

"No," she said popping the candy into her mouth with a grin. "I mean, why are you in an ER at six o'clock on a Sunday morning?"

"Well…uh," Castiel didn't know why he was talking to her, maybe it was the scrubs that put him at ease or maybe it was the way she was sprawled out in the chairs like they were her living room furniture, looking perfectly at ease in her own skin in a way that he never could. "There's just been a lot going on…in uh my mind lately…."

"Go on." She encouraged turning towards him slightly and tucking her leg up on the chair underneath herself.

"And um…there's this girl."

"Gotcha, girls. Man I get that."

"And I'm taking the GRE in a couple of weeks and there are all of these summer internships I have to apply for," Castiel reached into his bag and pulled out the thick ream of applications that he hadn't finished yet so that he could show them to the girl.

"Summer internships? Why would you want to work over the summer and probably not get paid for it? You should be on Coney Island, bird-doggin' chicks."

He tilted his head at that, confused.

"Are you even a doctor?"

"What do you think?" She asked smirking at him knowingly and crumpling up the now empty trail mix package that she shoved into one of the pockets of her white coat.

"You're a little young to be a doctor," He admitted, narrowing his eyes at her and quickly stowing away the applications. Castiel felt silly for talking to her in the first place, she was probably just messing with him.

"You ever heard of Doogie Howser?" The girl asked glancing back down the hallway that she had come from when a sharp whistle pierced the air. "That's my ride, gotta go."

"Yo," A male voice called followed by its owner ambling down the hallway to hook his arm through the girl's as she stood up. The guy was handsome in that classic, effortless way that Balthazar; the way that Castiel had always wished he was. He was also dressed in scrubs and a white coat, but Castiel could see the top of a grey shirt peeking out from the V shaped collar in the green scrubs. "Our cover has been breached, Dr. Feelgood."

"Roger that, Dr. Sexy." The girl giggled, waggling her eyebrows at Castiel as the pair quickly started down the hall together. She paused for a second to call back to him though and the man she was with finally spared a glance his way, smirking at him causing crinkling to form at the corners of his green eyes as Castiel watched them go. "Hope they fix what's wrong with you!"

"Who was that?" Castiel heard the man ask before he was startled by a tired sounding male voice pulling him away from staring after the odd pair.

"Castiel Shurley," The guy said, scrubbing a hand over his face and looking at him unenthusiastically as he moved to follow, fumbling with his bag in his haste to make his way across the room as quickly as possible.

The man was younger, probably could actually qualify as a Doogie Hower, unlike the girl who looked to be about the same age as he and Balthazar. His green eyes were red-rimmed and watery like he was at the end of a very long shift and just wanted to get Castiel out of his hair so that he could finally go home. Castiel followed him into an examination room and the man started taking his blood pressure and pulse with practiced movements, so self-assured that Cas felt like a complete waste of space by comparison.

"How long have you been feeling suicidal?" The man asked, picking up a metal clipboard that had a whole new bunch of forms attached to it, flipping through it mechanically and jotting down some random jibberish that probably could only be read by doctors. Castiel knew that he couldn't read Balth's handwriting to save his life and he thought that the chicken-scratch had to be a prerequisite for wanting to be pre-med.

"Uh, I don't know. I've been feeling bad for about a year and I've um…thought about it before, but never like this. So real."

"Has anything happened today specifically to trigger these feelings?" The man asked.

Castiel wished that there was an easy answer to that question. That his birth family abused him or that he was bullied in school, something like the dramas that Meg liked to watch on television where every character had a tragic back story that completely explained away their reasons for being a broody, whiny asshole to everyone they knew. But besides his mom dying, his life was pretty perfect. And everyone's parents died eventually, his siblings were coping with it. He was coping with it, sort of so that couldn't be the reason why he wanted to die.

Maybe it had something to do with feeling invisible all of the time.

His dad, Chuck Shurley, was a New York Times best-selling author; there was even talk over the last couple of months of his books being optioned for a movie or a television show, but he didn't know how far that had actually gone. Michael, Castiel's oldest brother, was a big-shot investment banker; managing hedge funds and millions of dollars everyday like it was pocket change. He was what their mother had always called the stable one because he had done it all- gone to college, gotten the dream job, worked his way up from nothing to being the guy that people called the next Alan Greenspan.

Gabriel and Anna were "creative spirits" like their father was. Gabe had somehow managed to talk his way onto The Today Show once, after finishing culinary school, because the chef that he was working for got stuck in traffic on his way over to the studio. That one appearance, where he had dipped Matt Lauer and pantomimed kissing him had been what had gotten him his own television show on The Food Network, _Shurley It's Gourmet! _Anna was in her final year at The Joffrey Ballet School and Castiel knew that he was not the only one who had broken down into an ugly, sobbing mess during her last dance recital.

And then there was school which made Castiel feel like all he wanted to do was ream his head into the wall over and over until the knowledge just leaked out of his ears along with his brain matter and personality. Graduate school didn't care about his personality or his extracurriculars, like when he had been in the school's orchestra his freshman year back when he still played the piano and he and Balth were living in those horrible, cramped college apartments because Cas had wanted to have the genuine college experience like Michael had. All that they were looking at were test scores and grades, which Castiel knew wouldn't get him very far since his grades had started slipping as he sank deeper and deeper into the pit of depression that he had stumbled into.

Meg and Balthazar might be part of the problem too, mostly Meg. The girl had been in his life for four years now, been dating his best friend for almost that long too after a rousing floor party in their dorms had introduced her to the roommates. And he had been in love with her since the first moment he met her, but even then he was too shy to make the first move so he had just been left to sit back and watch as Balthazar swooped in with his accent and his smarmy stories about growing up in England to snatch her away from him forever.

So between living up to his family name and the expectations that the world had for him, being less than extraordinary and knowing that he never would never measure up to the everyone around him, constantly cramming for school but still struggling with every test and every paper, and being in love with his best friend's girlfriend; was there any one reason why he had decided that he would finally jump off of a bridge and end his miserable existence?

"No, nothing out of the ordinary," Castiel replied robotically, wringing his hands from his perch on the examination table and watching the young doctor sigh as he flipped through his chart.

"Are you on any medications?" The man asked moving to sit on a stool beside him.

"Um, Zoloft. But I stopped taking it, I felt better and my prescription ran out so I just never bothered to refill it."

"Well you shouldn't just stop your meds, ever." The man said, clicking his tongue at him and reaching into his pocket to pull out a prescription pad. "They were probably working, that's why you felt better."

"Doctor-," Castiel began, he wanted to explain that it was pointless just giving him more drugs because he couldn't hold them down in fact he felt like he was about to throw up now so they should just cut the chatter and give him something intravenously to fix him so that he could go start working on his papers.

"I'm not a doctor yet, you can just call me Adam." The man replied scratching down some things on the pad before clicking his pen and sticking it back into his shirt pocket. "Mr. Shurley, I don't think you're a danger to yourself. I'm just going to refer you to one of our outpatient services and from there they will set you up with new meds and someone to talk to."

"Adam," Castiel began seriously. "I told you I want to kill myself and you're just going to send me home with a piece of paper? What if I do something?"

"Castiel," Adam replied pinching the bridge of his nose. "The people that we admit here are very, very sick and I don't thi—'

"I'm very sick!"

He hadn't meant to shout, most of the time he talked so softly that no one even noticed he was speaking at all, but this was life or death and all of a sudden he felt like there was probably at least one person who gave a fuck if he lived or died and Castiel wanted to find that person so he needed something besides a handshake and a phone number for a new therapist.

"It feels like everything is just building up and it's this constant pressure that just grinding me into the ground and everyone else can handle it but me. I need some help and my family…I can't take this to my family. I'm scared. I can't go back out there because I might do something and I just need some help, Adam. Please, just help me."

The younger man sat back on his stool and studied him for a moment, narrowing his eyes and biting his lip in a way that betrayed his youth. Castiel watched as he nodded to himself before pulling his pen back out and marking something on one of the charts, scribbling out a signature at the bottom. Adam sighed heavily and removed the top page from the rest.

"Alright man," Adam said pointing out a couple of spots on the paper. "I'm gonna need an emergency contact and then you need to sign here. I'll call someone down to come and get you."

Adam handed the form over to Castiel to sign, offering him his pen and the older man saw that it was a voluntary commitment form for the psychiatric wing of the hospital. He swallowed hard and met the other man's gaze, trying to force an appreciative smile on his face before he signed his life into the hands of the caring staff at Long Island College Hospital.


	3. Chapter 3

"So this is a teaching hospital, right?" The man who had picked Castiel up from the emergency room had been babbling since their introduction, going on and on about a bunch of different topics that started with how much he liked Castiel's cardigan and kind of trailed off from there in a disjointed way. Now it seemed like the orderly, Garth, was actually focusing in on one topic much to Castiel's relief.

"You're going to see a lot of interns and grad students, but don't let that scare you we all know what we're doing and there are like, real doctors supervising us and stuff so we're not going to prescribe you some crazy meds that zonk on you out or anything. Unless you need that kind of thing..."

Garth glanced down at the admitting papers that Adam had given him, shuffling through them until he came across the reason why Castiel had felt like he needed to sign away control of his life for a bit.

"Oh, suicidal. Huh, well then I guess that's one less rage-a-holic that I might get punched by. Anyway, you're therapist is going to be Dr. Mosely and she's a great lady, stern when she needs to be but very perceptive. She's not in on the weekends so you won't see her until tomorrow, but all of the groups and stuff are during the week anyway so we just kind of chill on the weekends."

"We?" Castiel asked hoisting his bag on his shoulder as he watched the numbers for the elevators flash above him, climbing higher at an agonizingly slow pace.

"Yea, the staff and the patients. There's some art therapy stuff and every now and then we put a ping-pong tournament together, music therapy is every other week so next week for that and on the weekends we don't have that we do a movie night. I think they're watching Caddyshack or something else with Bill Murray tonight."

"I don't watch a lot of movies," Castiel admitted, crossing his arms protectively over his chest when the elevator doors opened, revealing a large sign proclaiming 'Adult Psychiatric' with a big arrow pointing towards a set of double doors with built in windows on the left. "I'm usually too busy with schoolwork."

Garth strode up to the door and knocked on the widow, getting the attention of a blonde girl about the same age sitting inside at the nurse's station. "I forgot my badge again! Let me in!"

The girl got up and walked to the door, pointing a stern finger at the male orderly through the glass, "What did I say, Garth? Next time, you're gonna have to chase down Rachel and explain to her why it looks like I open the door for every yahoo who wants onto the psych ward. So go find her, I'm not getting yelled at again because of you."

"Jo, I have a patient with me." Garth complained, shifting back and forth on his feet and throwing an apologetic smile in Castiel's direction. "You're making me look bad, open the damn door."

The woman side stepped until she could see Castiel on the other side of the door, taking in his posture and appearance with a scrutinizing gaze that made him slightly uncomfortable. He would never get used to the faces some girls made at him, like they knew something about him that he didn't.

"Say it and I'll let you in," Jo told Garth through the door, earning a groan from the other man.

"No, Jo. You're being really unprofessional right now."

"Blame it on me already having to track down two patients who were just wandering around the hospital. I bet you let them do it too. You're such a sucker, Garth. So say it because it's the only way you're going to get thorough these doors."

Garth sighed heavily and glanced at Castiel before leaning in close to the glass, his breath ghosting over the square wires embedded in it as he spoke. "Joanna Harvelle is the Jedi master of all nursing staff and I am her padawon learner. Now open the door."

Castiel watched as the girl smiled at Garth toothily before going back behind the desk and hitting some button that made the door buzz so they could push it open. The orderly motioned for Castiel to follow him as he went behind the nurse's station and sat down heavily at one of the computers that were there. He grabbed one of the rolling chairs for himself and settled his bag in his lap as Garth pulled out a couple of sheets of paper from one of the filing cabinets under the desk.

"Fucking Jo," Garth muttered to himself, snatching up his name badge and clipping it on to the dark gray hoodie he was wearing with a pointed look towards the woman in question. "Women man, can't live with 'em and they won't go on a date with you for nothin'."

"Yea," Castiel agreed, not really understanding because his one and only girlfriend had been in junior high before all of the girls in his class had started developing in ways that he couldn't keep up with but couldn't stop gawking at either. "So um...how long to do I have to be here?"

"Well, the usual stay is anywhere between two weeks and two months. It's never more than two months, after that you're either discharged or transferred to a residential treatment center somewhere." Garth replied, passing the stack of papers to Castiel.

"Two weeks? I can't be here that long, I have school and tests and other things going on. I have a life that I can't just put on hold. Isn't there like a condensed version of therapy or something I can do to get out of here faster?"

"I've seen people get a discharge plan from their doctors in a week," Garth said with a shrug. "But treatment doesn't just stop because you leave the hospital, you'll still have to check in once a week for a month after you go and find a doctor who can provide continuing care."

Castiel could feel his heart racing and his stomach churning, he'd had no idea what he was signing up for by doing this. He had figured maybe a week, with spring break coming up he could just take his time in here separated from the stuff that was stressing him out and get some work done for school. But more than that? No. That was just not going to work for him.

"I have to go," He said quickly, standing up and dumping his bag on the tile floor forgotten in his rush to try to get some air that wasn't stale and chemically smelling and suffocating. Castiel went to the double doors and pulled on the handles desperately, part of him had known that they weren't going to open but he still had to find a way out of here and this was the most obvious way.

"Castiel," Garth said gently, coming up to pry his hands off the door. "You need to calm down, it's too late to change anything right now."

"It can't be too late!" Castiel said urgently, turning towards the other man as he brought his hands up to his head to tug on his hair in an effort to ground himself to the situation he had put himself in. "There has to be someone you can call, tell them this is all a mistake. I don't need to be here, I'm not like these people, I'm not crazy!"

"Can you keep it down?" A wan sounding male voice piped from farther down the hallway. Castiel noticed for the first time a smallish man with pale skin sagging off of his skeletal frame and dark circles under his eyes wearing white pajamas under a blue housecoat watching him along with several other people who had poked their heads out of the various doorways that lined the ward. "Some of us are trying to sleep."

"I'm sorry," Castiel said deflating in the face of someone who was clearly much worse off than himself. "I just...I don't know what I'm doing here."

"C'mon Castiel," Jo said moving from her place behind the desk to put a comforting hand on his arm. "I know that this is probably a lot for you to take in. But we need some information before we can get you settled, do you think you can handle answering some questions?"

Castiel just nodded like an ashamed child and let himself be led back to the chair that he had been sitting in, resolutely ignoring the stares of the other patients even though he could feel their curious eyes studying him like he was an ant under a magnifying glass. Jo rolled her chair over near his, probably to be closer if he tried to do something irrational again, but it seemed like she was also trying to make him feel better because she kept smiling at him and it reminded him of his mom a bit so he focused on that instead of the way his chest felt like it was imploding.

"So, Castiel," Garth began again, shooting Jo a wary look as he picked up the papers that Castiel had dropped on the floor next to his bag when he had gotten up. "I know that you aren't feeling so hot right now, but we need to know if you did anything before coming here?"

"Well I rode my bike around for a bit," Castiel said picking at his jagged fingers nails that he had taken to biting down to the quick when he was working on homework late into the night.

"No, honey," Jo said soothingly, making an apologetic face. "He means did you hurt yourself before you came to the hospital? Did you try to go for the good sleep?"

"The good sleep..." Castiel repeated slowly. "You mean did I swallow a bottle of pills before deciding that I needed to be here? Wouldn't they have pumped my stomach or something in the ER if that was the case?"

"Sometimes it takes a while for it to become obvious that someone has done something like that," Garth said, ticking something off on a sheet of paper that he had sitting on his desk. "Okay, um...do you have any special dietary or religious preferences that you would like for us to accommodate?"

"Not really," Castiel muttered shrugging slightly, why did everyone have to be so PC these days? Institutions like colleges and hospitals weren't supposed to care if you kept Kosher or were vegan, at least none of the ones he knew about cared.

"Great," Jo said as Garth ticked off another little box. "Last one Castiel, promise. This is the important one, do you feel safe having a roommate or is there a reason why you need to not be in a room with a specific gender?"

"Why does it matter?"

"In the past, there have been issues..." Garth said hesitantly. "With people being triggered because their roommate reminded them of someone who had hurt them so we try to avoid retraumatization by just asking up front if you have been abused or hurt by someone of either sex and if so we'll make sure that you feel safe so that you can focus on the treatment the doctor plans for you instead of protecting yourself. That's our job, to protect you. You're job is to get better."

"No," Castiel said feeling even more horrible about himself for taking the place of someone who might really need to be in a place like this. "I've never been abused. You can just put me in a room with whoever, it's not a big deal."

"That's great," Jo said brightly, standing up and moving briskly to a closet behind the nurses' station where she pulled down a medium sized clear plastic tub with a lid. She moved back to Castiel and set the container down on the chair where she had just been perched. "Now if you have anything sharp I need it. A pocket knife, keys, your belt, do you have shoelaces?"

"You need my shoelaces?" Castiel asked standing up and dumping his keys into the bin with a jangling clang, pulling his belt from his belt loops and slowly wrapping it up before putting it in the tote also.

"Yea," Garth said hefting Castiel's messenger bag up onto the desk and patting it a couple of times. "Just anything someone might use to hurt themselves with. And we'll have to go through your bag here too and then you can have the stuff out of it if you need it. The rest will be kept locked up back here until you discharge."

"I'm going to need more clothes and shoes and stuff," Castiel muttered more to himself as he fiddled with his phone, scrolling to hover over the contact he had for Gabriel, he had put his brother down as his emergency contact because he felt like the other man would be the least judgmental of all of his siblings and he sure as hell didn't want the fact that he was in a psych ward to get back to Balthazar or Meg.

"Well, we can call someone for you," Jo said gently taking the phone out of his hand and thumbing it off before nestling it up against his belt. "But you can't keep that with you, confidentiality and too many people making fake calls to the police."

"Is that all?" Castiel huffed irritated as he bent over to remove his laces from his Converse with agitated movements. "Want to strip search me too?"

"Is there a reason to?" Jo asked archly.

Garth ignored the other woman and scrawled out Castiel's name on a sticker, last name first which he then slapped onto the side of the tote. He glanced up and bit his lip, "You're glasses are plastic right?"

"I need them to see." Castiel deadpanned.

"You can have them," the other man said quickly, raising his hands in defense. "Just know that if it becomes an issue we're going to have to keep them with us."

Castiel just sighed, feeling more tired than he had in a really long time. He felt like maybe he could sleep and the nightmares wouldn't plague him like the normally did and maybe his brain would stop worrying for long enough that he could take a fucking nap.

"Alright!" Jo said clapping her hands together and steering him down the hallway with a guiding hand on the small of his back. "I think you've had just about enough of us, right? Let's get one of the others to show you around and we'll get your room set up."

They stopped in front of an open common area that had worn, comfortable looking couches and chairs scattered around. There was a television mounted in one corner of the room and morning cartoons were buzzing softly in the background, a scratched ping-pong table stood off to the side and there were two small bookshelves full of broken spined paperbacks and tilting vinyl records that had a record player sitting on top.

The room was mostly empty with just a dark haired woman wearing sunglasses standing in front of one of the two windows in the room, arms crossed over her chest and muttering to herself. Castiel thought he heard something about angels and ghosts, but he didn't want to eavesdrop so he just turned his attention to the two people who had their backs towards him on the couch. One had to be a girl with red hair flowing down and over the armrest that she was laying back on, Castiel could see a book peeking over the top of the couch in her hands and he smirked when he saw that it was a copy of _The Hobbit_. The other was a man with short, dirty blonde hair whose own head was titled up towards the television as he sipped a cup of coffee.

"Guys," Jo said getting the attention of the early risers who were in the room. Castiel could see from the clock that it was just after eight; Balthazar and Meg probably weren't even up yet. "This is Castiel. I need a volunteer to show him around while Garth and I get his room together. Anyone?"

The girl on the couch sat up, poking her face over the couch and lighting up when she saw Castiel standing in the doorway. It was the girl from the emergency room, the one that he had thought was a doctor only now the scrubs and long white coat were gone, replaced with a black shirt that had the Hogwarts crest on it and a brightly colored plaid over shirt. She hit the man on the couch on the shoulder excitedly until he finally turned his attention away from the television as it went to commercial.

"Come on guys, do me a solid here." Jo whined, gesturing up and down Castiel's body like he the grand prize in the Showcase Showdown. "He's not going to bite. You're not a biter, right?"

Castiel shook his head, feeling his stomach clench as the girl leaned in to whisper something into the man's ear, covering her mouth so that he couldn't read her lips. The other man's green eyes widened as they roved over Castiel and he turned to the girl with his brow furrowed slightly.

"You think?" he heard the man ask quietly, his face clearing when the girl nodded at him and rolled her eyes before she settled back down where she had been laying down on the couch.

The man jumped up quickly, scrambling over the back of the couch and earning a half-hearted reprimand from Jo who had already started walking off as he rushed over to where Castiel was standing in the doorway.

"I'll do it," the man gushed, sticking a hand out to Castiel in greeting. "Name's Dean Winchester. Welcome to the loony bin."


	4. Chapter 4

Garth walked past them while they were shaking hands, carrying a big bundle of bed linens and whistling softly to himself when he saw who Castiel had ended up with as a tour guide.

"Be nice, Dean. This isn't One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, don't call it a loony bin." The lanky orderly said.

"Sure thing, Nurse Ratched." Dean said letting go of Castiel's hand to salute the other man and then starting down the hallway.

Castiel rushed to catch up with his long legged strides, glancing at the doorways that they were passing and seeing names listed on little black plaques at about chest height. There was one name and then a little slash with a number beside it like 'Crowley/124666' and he figured that it was probably a patient number. There were two names on each little plaque and even though most of the doors were shut there were a couple that were open, revealing that a lot of his floor mates were just sitting on their beds staring at the walls still in rumpled looking pajamas and only a few were actually moving around with purpose doing something, getting ready for the day.

"You were in the emergency room earlier, right?" Dean asked ahead of him, turning slightly and grinning as he ran a hand nervously over the back of his neck. "You were talking to Charlie."

Castiel nodded at the other man, happy that at least the person leading him around didn't look entirely bonkers. Dean was wearing soft-looking jeans and a black Rolling Stones shirt with a long-sleeved grey undershirt pulled down his arms and hooked over his thumbs through holes torn in the seam of the cuff. The other man's eyes were also clear and alert, making him wonder exactly what someone as put together and confident looking as Dean was doing in a mental ward.

"I don't remember talking to a Charlie though," Castiel murmured lowly, keeping his arms crossed tight over his chest as Dean chuckled at him and pointed back down the hallway from where they had come.

"The girl," Dean said, making a 'meh' kind of face and waving his hand abstractedly a little bit. "Well, whatever. That's Charlie, with the red hair. You'll meet her, my roommate. With any luck you won't end up stuck in a room with Dick. I don't think they're letting Becks have roommates anymore, but we'll find Garth at the end of the tour and see where they put you."

Dean stopped at the end of the hallway in front of a row of windows with the same thin metal wiring strung through it as the front doors, gesturing dismissively at the room inside.

"Rec room, pretty much the same as the day area only with better couches and books and stuff. If you're family visits they'll let you use it no matter what level you are so that you can talk to them and stuff. You got a family, Cas?"

He nodded again, feeling like there was something thick and gluely blocking his throat, keeping him from breathing or talking and his lungs were starting to burn a little with from lack of oxygen. When Dean put an arm around his shoulder though, shaking him slightly until he looked up, Castiel felt his constricted muscles ease at the sight of the concerned look the other man was giving him. Dean's green eyes were dark with worry and it wasn't until Castiel forced a smile on his face that Dean lit back up, flashing that cheeky smirk that he had seen more than anything else on the other man's face.

"Thought I lost you there for a minute, Cas. Anyway, there's like a game system and stuff in there, which Charlie gets all girly over, but I never had that kind of thing growing up so it's not like I have any real incentive to keep my level."

"Level?"

"Yea," Dean scoffed, steering him in a meandering kind of way with his arm still slung over his shoulder. "Its like kindergarten, y'know? When they give you like gold stars or smiley faces or shit like that for good behavior? You have to be a certain level to get privileges and stuff, they want you to have it before they discharge you, and they drop it for the dumbest stuff too. Like I wouldn't have to go down to the ER for coffee if the stuff up here wasn't disgusting."

"You were down there for the coffee?" Castiel asked confused, letting the other man lead him around was easy. He could do this, this was how he started letting someone else take control for a while so that he could get out of his head and get his work done, when they finally gave it back to him that is.

"Dumb, I know. Anyway, Charlie's pretty torn up about having to go a couple days without Bioshock or whatever game it is she's working on, but that just means she's watching Groundhog Day with me tonight, sucker."

"That's weird that they let you be roommates with a girl." Castiel said, shoving his hands into the pockets of his pants because they were sweating and he thought it would gross Dean out if he wiped them on his legs like he did when they got that way.

Dean just shrugged a bit, glancing at him out of the corner of his eye with a confused line creasing his brows. "We're friends, its not a big deal. But yea, um...these are the showers."

He stopped in front of two doors set into the left hand side of the hallway, set about six feet apart from each other with little signs that slid when he reached out to show Castiel how they worked.

"So 'In Use' for when you're showering," Dean cleared his throat and looked over at him again, he felt like the other man wanted to say something else but didn't. "Or whatever and 'Enter' let's everyone know that it's empty and okay to go in. You would think they could've just put vacant up there, but that's probably just too easy for the geniuses here."

"It's fine," Castiel said, biting his lip and pushing his glasses back up his face before tugging on his sweater a bit. "I've got it."

"Okay, well you've got it. But no one else in this place does and we've got a couple of exhibitionists on this floor so just knock too unless you want to see some freaky shit. Trust me on that, knock."

Castiel didn't even want to imagine what someone with a mental disorder could get up to in a shower, but now that Dean had said something he couldn't stop himself. Imagining the other man screwing some girl with wild eyes and ratted up hair into the tiled wall of the small space and this was what Gabriel always picked on him for, the whole virgin thing because it made him give everything some subtle, sexual context that made it awkward to talk to anyone because he usually ended up hard. It happened with everyone, mostly Meg, but the pizza delivery boy was not safe either. Neither was Kali, his brother's ex-girlfriend, or Alfie that guy in his GRE study group. He didn't even know if it was bi-curiousness or what because he had never done enough with anyone to know for sure. So he was straight because that was easier and normal and it made him focus on one thing instead of the millions of different possibilities being anything else would open up for him.

"There's half baths in each of the rooms and one more shower down at the other end of the hall by the nurse's station, but we try not to use that because it's near Martin's room and he gets grumpy when you wake him up."

"Who's Martin?"

Dean ignored him, grabbing loosely onto his wrist and pulling him down the other side of the building, down a hallway that was opposite the one they had just come from, making the layout of the ward a weird, squarish 'U' shape that had the nurse's station situated at the top like a little umlaut that complimented how foreign all of this felt.

"Phone's there," Dean continued pointing out a pay phone and Castiel hadn't even known those existed anymore. "You can call your family, numbers on it so they can call you back if you want. Someone will come and find you if you have a call, Crowley likes to answer it, but I think it should just be whoever is closest. Also um, cafeteria is here, breakfast is soon and the food here isn't terrible so I guess that's a pro of this place."

"I'm not big on eating..." Castiel said, his stomach flipping over at just the mention of food and he was trying to just focus on how Dean's hand felt wrapped around his cardigan covered wrist because for some reason the other man's touch helped. Dean knew what he was doing, he was sure of himself and didn't seem like a huge wreck, he was probably something of a success story for this place and maybe if he left feeling half as good as the other man this wouldn't be completely pointless.

"Well, you've got to eat man." Dean said worriedly, lowering his voice when an angry looking man barreled by them to sit at the head of one of the tables, surveying the empty space in a predatory way that reminded Castiel just a little bit of that book American Psycho and Patrick Bateman. "They watch out for that kind of stuff here, eating disorders."

"I don't have an eating disorder." Castiel replied, probably sounding harsher than he had intended to if the hurt look on the other man's face was anything to go by. Great, just when he had thought that he was making a friend. Stupid stupid stupid. "I'm just...picky. Food isn't appetizing sometimes."

"Sor-ry," the other man said, turning away from him and starting towards where the nurse's station sat at the junction of the hallways. "Garth, Jo! Tour's over, you can have him back now. I didn't hurt him."

"I wasn't worried about you hurting him, Dean." Jo replied blandly gesturing for Cas to follow her as Dean wandered back towards the day area, glancing back over his shoulder once at him before plopping heavily back down on the couch he had been on with Charlie and laying his head on her shoulder. "Come on hun, I'll show you where your room is."

Castiel followed the girl; cursing himself for alienating yet another person who was just trying to be nice to him and making a mental note to apologize to Dean later if the other man gave him the chance. His room just had one name on the door, Turner/168007 and it was closer to the end of the hall on the same side as the day area so at least he probably wouldn't be bothered by any noise that the rest of the people on the ward might make when he finally got a chance to start on his homework.

It was a bland space, but still less institutional than he had been expecting it to be. There were two wood framed twin sized beds with a small night stand separating them. There were two small dressers pressed up against the wall opposite the beds and one had a wrapped cafeteria tray sitting on it along with coins and sticks of gum scattered across the scarred surface. The other was bare and Castiel assumed it was his since it was at the foot of the bed that didn't currently have a lumpy form nestled underneath the thin blanket that the hospital provided.

Feet were sticking out, one was missing a couple of toes and Castiel tried hard not to shudder when his mind started racing with ways that the older man watching him with a wary, tired expression on his face could have lost the digits. All he could make out were dark eyes peering out at him from a heavily, lined face settled between salt and pepper hair and several days worth of graying stubble on the man's ebony colored jaw.

"Hey, Rufus," Jo began softly, pushing on the small of his back gently to force Castiel to move farther into the room. "Got a new roommate for you. His name's Castiel."

The man just blinked and him and harrumphed before rolling over and facing the window that was set into one wall of the room. Through it Castiel could glimpse the tops of a tree and the pointy black fence that surrounded the hospital, but not much else.

"Don't take it personally," Jo said, picking up a couple of papers and handing them to him. "Rufus doesn't talk much...in fact, I don't know if I've ever seen him leave the room."

Castiel swallowed hard and looked down at the things she had given him, one was a schedule of groups and therapies with the times they happened and where they happened listed in parenthesis underneath. It had everything from AA to an abuse survior's group to anger management; Castiel had no idea which ones he needed to sort out his fractured mind. There were a couple of big chunks of time devoted to meals and creative therapies like the music and art stuff Garth had mentioned.

The other was a menu, where he could circle the things he wanted to eat for the next day, there were a lot of choices, but right now, with how his stomach was twisting none of it sounding the least bit appetizing. The last sheet was a list of rules, stating all of the things that he could and couldn't do while staying at the hospital. It outlined which were the ones he would get his level lowered(running away, stealing, suicidal behaviors) and which ones it sounded like were just frowned upon or possibly, expected(leaving the ward unsupervised, cursing, being disrespectful to other patients). There was a big part about avoiding romantic entanglement, something about all of the patients having come into the hospital for treatment alone and leaving the same way. It sounded depressing and he wondered how Dean and Charlie were getting away with being together right under the staff's nose.

"Dr. Mosely will go over the schedule with you when you see her in the morning and together you two will decide which groups are the best for your specific treatment. Fun stuff like art and movie nights aren't mandatory, but it helps some people feel better to be around others so feel free to join in when Lisa gets here later for art. Any questions?"

Castel shook his head and bit his lip hard so that he wouldn't blurt out that he just needed his bag and would shut himself in his room until whoever it was that was in charge decided that he could go home. He needed to call Gabriel, going over the list of things in his head that he needed his brother to get for him from his apartment as Jo smiled at him and left the room.

He sighed and moved to sit down on the bed, staring at Rufus's back that was just rising and falling steadily under the brownish blanket that was covering him. Castiel was just so tired, when had he slept last? For more than just an hour or so before he shot up from a nightmare or suddenly remembering something that he needed to be working on or rushing to the bathroom to throw up whatever dinner he had managed to force down his throat before lying down.

"Turn off the light," A deep voice muttered from the blankets and Castiel nodded even though the other man couldn't see him before getting up and flipping the switch that cast the room into semi-darkness.

He stood there for a second, trying to imagine himself in the cafeteria eating whatever food they put in front of him and being ignored by everyone else, just like in high school. Just like his whole life.

He decided to kick off his shoes instead, stripping of his cardigan and tossing it over the top of his empty dresser and collapsing onto the bed on his stomach. Castiel's glasses pressed hard against his face and he pulled them off, dropping them on the floor between his and the other man's bed because his arm felt too heavy to lift them onto the night stand. He pulled his arms under his chest, imagined that it was someone caring enough to hold him like his mom used to do when he came back from school weary and resigned to the fact that he was nothing, a waste of space, invisible.

It was in that position that for the first time in a long time, he fell asleep.


	5. Chapter 5

It was the sound of screaming that woke Castiel up out of his dreamless slumber and at first he didn't remember where he was, shooting up out of the bed that was smaller than his own back at the apartment and falling on the floor in a tangle of bedsheets and thin hospital blankets. He fumbled for his glasses, muttering a soft thanks to no one in particular that he hadn't landed on them when he fell into the space between his and Rufus's beds

Stuffing his feet into his laceless Converse, Castiel poked his head carefully around the edge of his door only to dart back quickly when he saw a large dictionary hurtling in his direction, watching open mouthed when it bounced off the doorframe inches from where his face just was.

"This is fucking bullshit!" A female voice yelled from the hallway and Castiel knew from his quick glance outside of his room that their appeared to be a rather heated confrontation going on between a girl with long dark hair all dressed in black and another blonde girl who was just staring at her with a look of tranquility that seemed off-kilter in a long flowing white dress. "You two always take her fucking side in everything!"

He looked back out of his doorway, stooping to pick up the dictionary and holding it in front of himself like a shield as he moved towards the back hallway that led past the rec room, away from the yelling and the confrontation that was making him feel panicky even though it looked like Garth and another older man with a grizzled beard and a trucker hat had the situation under control as they tried to calm the brunette down.

"Ruby, you know we don't take sides," Garth said softly, taking a step towards the girl who had taken off her boot and was aiming it menacingly at the other girl. "Lilith said she saw you with contraband in your guys' room and we have to make sure. We're going to search her stuff too, you can be right there and watch me look through it."

"She hates me," The brunette whined dramatically, pointing at the blonde who was just smiling toothily at her. "I don't want to be in a room with her anymore, she's trying to sabotage my treatment."

"Well she's trying to kill me," the blonde said and Castiel felt like the look on her face had to be what true insanity looked like, calm in the face of talking about being murdered smiling like it was an amusing anecdote. "She said she was going to slice me open and drink my blood because it tasted better than her favorite drug."

"You don't eat heroin you fucking moron!" The brunette yelled and Castiel slipped around the corner as quickly as he could when he saw that she was rearing back to throw her heavy boot at the other girl, but based on her aim when she threw the dictionary he didn't want to be caught in the crossfire.

He pressed his back against the wall next to the showers, shutting his eyes and pushing his glasses up into his hair so that he could rub at his eyes with the heels of his hands until he woke up from this fucking nightmare he had put himself in. The shower door closest to him opened, ejecting a man who was probably in his early thirties with dark hair that was receding in a graceful way and inexplicably wearing a black suit jacket over a red 'I Heart NY' t-shirt. Castiel let his glasses fall back onto his nose, which he knew had just crinkled in confusion when he saw that the man was hastily doing up the fastenings on his jeans with a self-satisfied smirk on his face.

The yelling in the hallway behind him continued and the other man looked at him briefly, winking in a conspiratorial way before leaning around the corner and making a slashing motion across his throat. A couple of seconds later the girl in the white dress walked by them, floating serenely down the hallway like nothing had happened and settling herself on one of the couches in the rec room with a book that had been lying on one of the cushions.

"Great little distraction, that girl." The man beside him said, jutting his chin towards the rec room and putting a hand heavily on his shoulder. "Lilith just likes to see chaos, I didn't even have to promise her anything and Ruby, well she's just enough of a hot-head to rise to the occasion every time I need Garth and Bobby off my back for a bit. You must be the new guy then?"

Castiel nodded dumbly, feeling completely out of the loop because who just talked to strangers like that? Like they were old friends who let each on in on their devious plots? He didn't do that, Castiel didn't like to talk to strangers because firstly, strangers were usually dangerous and secondly, if they weren't dangerous in the conventional sense with guns or knives or pepper spray then they were dangerous because it meant that he was going to have to stress over whether or not he had made a good first impression on them.

"Well, my boy you were the talk of the tables this morning at breakfast, your fan club was mooning over you, it was so thoroughly disgusting I could hardly hold down my Wheaties."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Castiel muttered, wondering what time it was because if he had slept through breakfast then maybe he had missed lunch too and his stomach was actually nagging emptily at him for once.

"I'm sure you don't angel face," The man said following Castiel towards the other hallway where he was pretty sure he had seen a clock hanging over the pay phone when Dean gave him the tour. "Name's Crowley by the way, I've pretty much figured out how to work places like this so if you have any questions or need anything then I'm the man you need to ask."

"You answer the phone," Castiel said, mostly to himself noting that he had about twenty minutes until lunch which was fantastic, but he just hoped that he still had an appetite by then.

"I'm much more than a glorified receptionist," Crowley grumbled, smiling winningly at the people they passed who were shuffling around in house robes and slippers, like a politician trolling for votes.

Castiel envied only slightly how easy it seemed for him to interact with others because the ones that weren't smiling back at Crowley were shrinking away against the walls in an effort to avoiding touching the accented man in the black blazer.

He sat down on a bench that was against the wall outside of the cafeteria, pressing his hands between his knees and trying to focus on anything besides how the only people he had met on this floor were the weird, enigmatic Englishman who had sat down beside him and was still talking, saying something about Alexander the Great and how much he admired him, and Dean who he wasn't even sure would want anything to do with him after snapping at him earlier.

Almost as if by thinking of him it summoned him, Dean came walking out of one of the bedrooms at the end of the hall talking with that girl Charlie in hushed whispers, so caught up in his conversation that the pair ran right into a mousy-looking girl in an oversized sweatshirt coming around the corner who was smoothing down her highlighted blonde hair. He watched as Dean wrapped a brotherly arm around her shoulders, shaking his head slightly and smiling in a resigned kind of way in Charlie's direction when the redhead gave him a pointed look.

"Hiya Becky," Crowley purred beside Castiel, nudging him lightly in the side and nodding in the trio's direction as they approached where they were sitting. "Long time no see."

"Ugh, Becks really?" Charlie scoffed, looking Crowley up and down with a disgusted expression on her face. "You could do so much better."

The other girl just shrugged slightly, looking at Crowley and Castiel on the bench with a shy smile on her face and tugging on the hem of her sweatshirt. Crowley preened under the attention of the three people, well two since Dean was just looking at Castiel with a small frown on his face as he led the two girls into the cafeteria and to a table in the far corner of the room.

"That girl is a firecracker," Crowley said appreciatively, waggling his eyebrows meaningfully at Castiel.

"Charlie?"

"No," Crowley said sounding slightly disappointed as he got up and straightened out his jacket. "That particular spitfire is a confirmed bachelorette unfortunately, just like her little friend of Dorothy there. Shame with the both of them actually, I'm more of an equal opportunity lover myself. Winchester has this brother who comes to see him and the boy has all of the grace of a drunken moose, but man if he were just a little older..."

"I don't think I'm hungry anymore," Castiel announced emptily because he wasn't of fucking course he wasn't, talking to Crowley had just made him feel like he needed to take a shower and the thought of spending the entire meal listening to the other man's prattle was even more unappealing than the smells coming out of the cafeteria.

"You're going about this all wrong," Crowley said dismissively, holding his hands out to the angry looking man that Castiel had seen during his tour with Dean earlier like they were best friends. "Dick! My old friend, how are you doing today? Feeling mellow?"

Castiel didn't stick around to see how the other man reacted, getting up and meandering back down the way he had come so that he could go sleep away some more of his time here, Rufus seemed to have worked out the best way to manage this place.

"Castiel!"

He turned around, scrubbing a hand through his hair in frustration that the urge to eat had come and gone so quickly, he couldn't even control his own body anymore; breaking out in cold sweats and vomiting and feeling like he was hyperventilating more than feeling normal. All he fucking wanted was to be normal, that's all he had ever wanted.

Charlie was speed walking down the hallway towards him, her hair pulled back up into the bun that she had been wearing in the emergency room earlier. She had a determined look on her face and if Castiel didn't know any better he would've sworn that she had been taking lessons from Michael, the expression was that serious and scary looking.

"Where do you think you're going?" She asked getting into his body space so she forced him back against the wall of the hallway, poking hard at his chest until he winced from the pressure of her finger.

"I'm not hungry," Castiel said weakly, girls like Charlie intimidated the shit out of him, just like Meg had when he had first met the girl before he had gotten to know her and learned to see past the thorny exterior she put on for a lot of people. "I'm going back to my room."

"First, you're not allowed to just do that, when someone is nice to you the accepted response is to be nice back. You don't get to snap at them and make them feel bad for showing concern for someone," Charlie said waving her hands expressively in the air around them. "Second, skipping two meals gets you put on automatic self-injury watch. That means you get stuck with Garth or Bobby or Jim trailing after you everywhere and I mean everywhere, Cas. You don't even get to shower alone. So you are going to come in there and eat something."

"Why do you care?" Castiel snapped, having the fact that he had actually hurt Dean's feelings thrown in his face did not help the nausea he was already feeling, but if he did vomit now it was just going to be burning stomach acid that made his throat hurt and experience had taught him that maybe if he forced some milk or something down now it would hurt less when he barfed later. "I'm not fucking anybody to you, I'm not anything to anyone here!"

"That's where you're wrong," Charlie hissed back at him. "You're something to someone here and yea, we don't know you very well but seeing you give up when you've just gotten here is not cool, dude. So just stop feeling like you're the only person in this place with issues because you're not. We're all fucked up and we're all working on it. So fucking work on it."

He nodded meekly and searched for something to say to this girl that he hardly knew who cared way more than anyone he had met in a long time. "Okay. I'll try to eat something."

"There is no try, Cas." Charlie said, her face lighting up in a smile as she grabbed his hand and led him back into the cafeteria which by now was mostly full and noisy with the sound of people talking and eating. "There is only do."

She led him up to the table where Dean was sitting with the blonde girl, Becky and another boy with a dirty blonde mullet and thick black riding gloves on. Dean looked at him warily as he approached, licking his lips and tugging on the ends of his long-sleeve undershirt until it was hooked back over his thumbs from where it had been pushed up slightly on his forearms before. The boy's green eyes fell to his own forearms and Castiel glanced down self-consciously, scratching at the bare skin there absently before he looked back up to smile meekly at the assembled group as he took the seat next to Dean that Charlie had pulled out for him.

"Guys," Charlie said benevolently. "This is Castiel. Cas this is Ash and Becky, you already met Dean this morning."

Castiel nodded at the assembled group, jumping in his seat slightly when a cafeteria tray was sat down in front of him on the table by a frazzled looking Jo. It was tan injection-molded plastic, exactly like the ones his high school had used and the ones the jocks had banged on the table like agitated monkeys anytime they thought something was funny, some sexist joke or when they picked on the few kids in his school that were out. He had avoided the cafeteria like the plague back then, choosing to eat lunch with Gabriel and his weird stoner friends outside rather than brave the hoards of students his own age.

On it there was a plain hamburger with a side of vegetables wrapped in plastic; onions and pickles and tomatoes nestled neatly on a bed of fairly crispy looking lettuce. There were tater tots on the side and a small salad with little separate packages of condiments and wrapped plastic silverware. Plastic cups of instant coffee and hot water with tea bags were on each of the trays that were sat down in front of the various people at the table and as soon as Jo stepped away everyone started swapping things around, exchanging mustard for more ketchup or salads for more tater tots depending on what each person was eating.

He sat with his hands folded in his lap, just watching because this was utter fucking shit. Cas really liked burgers, Gabe made these amazing ones for him sometimes when they visited each other that had prosciutto and arugula and this weird looking, dill and mango chutney that was fucking orgasmic, but even those he hadn't been able to stomach the last time his older brother had made them for him so how the hell was he supposed to eat these?

Cas liked tea though, it was a taste that he had developed over the last four years during his friendship with Balthazar who preferred Earl Grey and his London fogs to the chia and herbal teas that he liked better. Usually he could keep those down so he resolutely opened the tea bag that had been provided for him on the tray, some weird brand that was probably ordered in bulk by the hospital in order to appease all of the different people that they treated.

He could feel eyes on him, but a glance towards the door confirmed that Jo was deep in conversation with another older woman wearing a hospital badge who almost looked like she could be her mother, supervising the cafeteria together, but really just casting cursory peeks around the room every now and then. Cas looked around the table and saw that it was Dean watching him, a soft smile playing at the corners of his cupid's bow mouth as he watched him dip the tea bag into the hot water meticulously and reverently like it was an exact science that required precise concentration and gestures or it would be ruined.

"Is that all you're eating, bro?" A southern voice drawled from Ash who was sitting across from him on Dean's other side next to Charlie.

Castiel looked around the table, squirming under the gaze of everyone who was now looking at him and how he had picked up the tea off of his tray, pushing the rest away from himself so that he could wrap his fingers around the warm plastic mug in an effort to gain some strength from the soothing beverage.

"Leave him alone," Dean said beside him, offering him a sincere smile that Castiel returned, the muscles in his face feeling taunt and achy from not having moved in those directions in so long. Dean picked up his own cup of hot water and his tea bag, moving it to sit next to Castiel's tray and taking his coffee in exchange. "There, I don't like tea anyway. This way everyone's happy. Right, Cas?"

He nodded slightly, feeling a lump well up in his throat when Charlie gave him her sugar packets for his tea saying that she liked her own black, Ash and Becky quickly giving up their own drinks even though it was way more than one person could possibly consume before the water got cold and useless. Castiel sipped his tea and tried to follow the conversations going on around him, but got lost again thinking about Balthazar and Meg and his family and how in the world he was going to pull himself together enough to convince a doctor that he could leave.

"Dean," Becky said from the end of the table where she was sitting with a chair between her and the rest of the people around her. "Lisa's here."

The other girl had turned around her chair and was looking at a dark haired woman that had stopped to talk to Jo and the other nurse in the doorway, hefting a big milk crate full of various art supplies higher on her hip as she smiled at the other two women. He heard Dean clear his throat beside him, looking at the woman with an animated expression on his face and tapping his fingers on the table in an agitated way.

Castiel felt his stomach twist when he saw the excited look on Dean's face and quickly set his mug down because the off-brand tea obviously wasn't agreeing with him and made a mental note to ask someone if his brother could bring him some tea that he knew he liked. If there was going to be one thing that might help him through this, of course it was going to be something as silly and insignificant as tea.

* * *

Author Note: Guys, I literally had five chapters of this up on AO3 before I realized that I hadn't posted it on here. I think I may be losing my mind in my old age or my blood is slowly being replaced by caffeine and suffocating my brain. Either way, five chapters of a Movie AU fic based loosely (very loosely) on the book by the same name by Ned Vizzini. Enjoy and let me know what you think!


	6. Chapter 6

Castiel didn't go to the art lesson, but apparently most of the rest of the floor did because he spent the next hour and a half sitting in the relative silence of the common room while everyone else except for the dark haired lady with the sunglasses he had seen earlier was in the cafeteria falling all over themselves to impress Lisa with how well they could draw a house or a tree or in Ash's case a beaver, which he had announced was his subject of choice as he helped Dean clear up the tables enough so that Lisa with all of her smiles and her big brown doe-eyes and her bouncy, genuine energy could hand out art supplies.

A small part of him had wanted to stay, but drawing and painting just reminded him of his mom and Castiel hadn't even been able to turn around the painting that she had done for him on his eighteenth birthday, the one full of spastic paint splatters with a body only vaguely painted in hunched over a piano. He had told his mom that the painting looked like music felt and it was one of the last good memories he had with her before she had started to get sick. The painting was still turned towards the wall in his bedroom, above his dresser that faced his bed because looking at it hurt, but he couldn't bring himself to take it down.

He took the time alone to make a list of things that he needed from his apartment, begging a piece of paper and a pencil off of the older woman, Ellen, who had replaced Jo at the nurse's station when her shift had ended after lunch. She seemed nice. Motherly and his heart had twisted just a little bit when she had called him, Hon in that way that only moms could manage to pull off without sounding old fashioned.

Castiel liked lists, they did a lot for him in clearing his head and he had perfected the skill in junior high and high school when he used to sit around making lists in study hall of all of things he wanted to do someday, bands he wanted to see, or experiences he would like to have before he grew up and had to get serious about school like Michael.

Growing up had come much sooner than he had thought it would though and the lists were the things that had been helping Cas through the confusion of it all up to this point, he had them scattered all over the apartment on whiteboards and post it notes and scraps of paper that he had ripped out of something before attaching them to the fridge. Every couple of days he would go through and pluck down all of the ones that he had completed, mentally patting himself on the back before tossing them in the trash, but over the last year he had been making more lists than he finished and when Meg had threatened to clear the fridge of the messily scrawled assortment of reminders a couple of months ago he had had his first panic attack.

It had been terrifying and in retrospect, afterwards when he had dragged himself out of the spray of the shower that had long since turned cold as he tried to calm himself down, it had probably been the first time that the thought of killing himself hadn't seemed entirely ridiculous. Maybe he should've gone back to that therapist that Michael had insisted they all see after their mother had died, he was pretty sure the guy only specialized in grief counseling, but he had been nice and Castiel could've gotten a recommendation to someone, hell anyone so that he hadn't ended up where he was now.

He let his mind drift to whether or not Jo and Garth had called Gabriel for him before they left, telling his older brother where he was and probably freaking the other man out more than anything else. Gabe would probably have thought they were joking at first since everything was always a joke with the chef, but Castiel knew that the other man hid a lot of his worry behind smirks and laughter and pranks so chances were he was just as stressed as Cas most of the time, just better at coping with it than he was.

"Dude, Lisa kicked me out," Ash said dropping heavily onto the other end of the couch that Castiel was sitting on, making his list using the back of one of the paperbacks that he had found on the book shelf as a table. The other man waved a heavy piece of drawing paper in his direction before settling it in his lap and looking at it with a hit of pride in his voice. "I guess she thought I meant the other kind of beaver."

Castiel glanced over at the drawing and flinched back when he saw that it indeed wasn't the type of beaver he had been thinking of either. He shook his head at the other man, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth as he turned back to his list.

"I think I did a good job," Ash continued petulantly beside him. "I mean its pretty life like and Georgia O'Keeffe painted nothing but vaginas and her stuff sells for millions of dollars."

"O'Keeffe painted flowers," Castiel stated blandly, shifting in his seat and trying to will away the blush that was creeping up his neck, he just wished that Ash would change the subject. "But she also painted landscapes and animals and those didn't all have veiled erotic subtext. You just drew a vagina and since there are so many women here, Lisa probably didn't want anyone getting offended or anything."

"Whatever," Ash replied, folding up the drawing and shoving it in the pocket of the flannel button down he was wearing over a faded Lynard Skynard t-shirt. "Everyone's a critic. Becky draws nothing but dicks in there and Lisa just kisses her ass about it, but one fucking pussy and everyone freaks out. You didn't want to get in on the drawing action?"

"I don't draw," Castiel muttered, scratching at his neck and adjusting his glasses on his face before sighing and adding his GRE study guides to the list of things he needed.

"Dude, I don't either." Ash admitted, leaning back on the couch in the same way that Charlie had earlier in the emergency room, like it was furniture that belonged in his living room instead of in the middle of a mental ward. "But Lisa is hot, a total MILF and I guarantee you that's the reason why most everyone is in there right now. Andy doesn't even get half that many people for music therapy when he is here."

"Well, guess she's not really my type," Castiel said and for some reason it felt true, like there was just something about the way that Lisa carried herself and her smile seemed a little too cheery to be real for him to be interested in her.

It was the same way with some of the girls at school who had perfect breasts and legs that went on for miles, but no problems. Like they were Disney princesses that had never had anything bad happen to them in their lives and Castiel just couldn't deal with that. Everyone had shit going on and he had always liked that Meg was just honest about how messed up her life was, it was comforting to know that other people struggled with finding normalcy like he did. And maybe he had read too many tragic love stories growing up, a byproduct of his mom's love for trashy romance novels and his dad's insistence that there was something better out there when he had caught Castiel reading them one night. Relationships were supposed to be a struggle, nothing good came easy and that's why he still held out hope for him and Meg even after all of these years of her dating his best friend.

"Huh," Ash huffed with a smile beside him, snatching up one of the paperbacks that had been sitting on the coffee table and flicking through it disinterestedly. "Guess Dean'll be happy to hear that."

Castiel felt his brows knit together in confusion over his glasses, but bit the inside of his cheek to keep from commenting about what how happy he bet Dean would be to hear that he had even less competition for the art therapist's attention that it seemed. The other man had practically skipped up to Lisa when she arrived, wrapping her in a tight hug and smiling widely as she pressed a drawing pad into his hands along with a box of professional looking drawing pencils.

He may be a little bit behind on his slang so he wasn't sure what 'a friend of Dorothy' was, but Cas assumed that it was the equivalent of a confirmed bachelor since that's what Crowley had referred to Charlie as in practically the same breath. So they weren't dating and Castiel wasn't sure why that information had been what made him feel better about eating lunch with the two roommates, but it had and now that he saw how Dean and Charlie acted together he knew that their relationship was more sibling-like than anything else.

"Shurley, you got a visitor boy!" Bobby's gruff voice barked from the doorway to the common room and Castiel abandoned his seat on the couch to follow the older man back towards the nurse's station, staring down at his list and chewing on the end of his borrowed pencil as he tried to figure out what it was he was forgetting, he knew it was something.

"Cassie!" Gabriel's voice brought him out of his revere right before the smaller man flung himself at him, wrapping Castiel in a rib crushing hug before his brother moved his hands up to cup his face so that he could search the younger man's face with a worried line creasing his brow. "God! I got a call from the hospital telling me that you had been admitted and you're in the psych ward. What the fucking hell is going on? Did you do something?"

"No," Castiel lied, deciding that it was better if his older brother didn't know how close he had actually come to jumping of the Brooklyn Bridge that morning. "I just felt really bad and there was no one else there to talk to so I came here and signed myself in for a bit."

"I thought you were on something," Gabriel admonished, letting go of his face in order to cross his arms sternly over his chest in a sad imitation of Michel who had always been the more intimidating of his two older brothers. "And why didn't you call me?"

"I was," Castiel hissed, pulling his brother closer in an effort to keep their conversation slightly more private even though he knew that Bobby wasn't actively trying to listen to them from where he was sitting behind the nurse's station going through a reusable shopping bag that had been sitting on the counter when Castiel walked up. "And I didn't want to bother you or Mike with this, you guys are busy and its fine I can handle it, I'm handling it."

"Obviously." Gabriel deadpanned, gesturing behind him to the neatly folded clothes Bobby was pulling out of the bag. "They told me to bring you some clothes and stuff, but I didn't have a key to your apartment so I just brought everything I had that might fit."

"Gabe all of your pants are going to be too short on me," Castiel complained, sounding more whiny than he had intended to if the raised eyebrows of his brother were anything to go by. He cleared his throat and wrapped his arms around his chest, griping the note and pencil tightly in his hand until he could feel the wood digging into his palm. "I'm going to look like a fucking moron."

"No one cares what you look like, Cassie." Gabriel replied tersely. "So you're going to have to wear sweatpants until I can get you your own stuff, big fucking deal. This isn't a fashion show; it's a hospital you really need to get your priorities straight here, baby bro."

Castiel let out a heavy breath, running a hand through his hair and nodding at his brother because Gabe was right. Why was he worrying about petty stuff like clothes and impressing people? Hell, half of the people he had seen were walking around in pajamas and no one seemed to care, so maybe he could just not worry about it for now. Appearances were something that didn't matter here, no one cared who his father was or who his brother's were because they were dealing with their own shit just like he was.

"Okay," Gabriel said giving him one of the winning smiles that he known for and picking up the bottles that Bobby had placed to the side of the bag. "I brought you shampoo and deodorant, a toothbrush and toothpaste. Y'know just the basics, a couple of changes of clothes and stuff. Kali told me to bring you some books so I got you crosswords and Sudoku, she loves that stuff but you know how I can be with numbers; all of my recipes are literally a pinch of this a handful of that. Rachel Ray can keep her fancy measuring cups, stuffs for amateurs."

"You told Kali I was here?" Castiel groaned, leaning heavily onto the counter beside them. "Why did you tell her?"

"Well she was there when the fucking call came, Cassie, and I kinda flipped my shit because I thought you were dying so I had to tell her what was going on. It's cool, she gets it she said her sister had like an anxiety disorder or something growing up so it's no big deal to her."

"It's a big deal to me, Gabe." He snapped, slamming the fist that was holding the crumpled up list and pencil down hard enough for the sound to cause his brother to jump back slightly in surprise. Castiel saw Bobby tense up out of the corner of his eye and fuck, no he did not need these people thinking he was violent on top of depressed so he forced a half-hearted laugh out and shot his brother an apologetic look. "No, it's fine. It doesn't matter if she knows."

"Are you sure, Castiel?" Gabriel asked sounding apologetic and uncertain. None of his siblings knew how to act around him anymore, not after his mom had died and Castiel just felt more out of place in his patchwork family than ever before.

"Yea, its fine," he mumbled, smoothing out his list and crossing off a couple of the things that Gabriel had managed to bring him already; toiletries, socks, and boxers because his brother had just bought brand new packages of those for him since there was no way he could wear the older man's. Castiel pushed the list across the counter towards his older brother and offered the battered pencil back to Bobby. "Look, I just need a couple more things, my own stuff from the apartment."

"How long are you going to be here?" Gabriel asked, picking up the paper and reading it with a frown that just got deeper and deeper the longer his eyes were focused on the paper.

"Two weeks at the least," Castiel replied, wincing away from the pitying look the other man gave him before Gabe just nodded and folded the paper carefully, stowing it away in the pocket of the expensive designer jacket he was wearing. "I know, just um...take my keys and go to my apartment for the rest of my clothes and books. I have a couple of papers I need to work on and all of my research is at home; I'd get it off the internet, but I'm pretty sure they aren't going to let me Google anything while I'm here."

"You probably shouldn't be worrying about school right now, Cas." Gabriel said pitching is voice low and calming because he knew that grades were a sensitive topic for the younger man. "I mean, I'm sure you can talk to your teachers or maybe Dad or Michael can and they'll give you an extension or like, medical leave or something until you're better."

Castiel shook his head quickly, feeling his throat tighten at the thought of his dad or eldest brother stepping in to clean up his messes for him yet again. Just another school thing that he couldn't handle because he was too sensitive, too fucked up to deal with his problems like an adult should be able to.

"No, I've got to finish this semester, Gabe. There are some internships that require me to have my bachelor's and I need to finish so I can be considered for them. So just get my stuff for me please and I'll owe you forever, I can't quit now when I'm so close to being done."

Bobby retrieved Castiel's keys for him from his plastic box and handed them to Gabriel. Castiel tried to swallow when he saw that his messenger bag had been stuck in the box as well with a note attached to it that he couldn't read, but it felt like his mouth had had all of the moisture sucked out of it.

"What am I supposed to do if Balthazar asks where you are?"

"He won't," Castiel replied bitterly.

Balthazar was usually too caught up in whatever he had going on to notice when his roommate wasn't around unless he wanted an audience that wasn't Meg. Not that having an audience ever deterred the Brit from having loud, vigorous sex with the striking brunette woman practically anytime Castiel was trying to study. It was fucking torture because now he knew exactly what Meg sounded like in bed and it only served to fuel his jealousy towards his friend and self-loathing that he had been too nervous to make his move when he had the chance.

"Oh-kay," Gabriel said rolling his eyes slightly before pulling him into another tight hug, which Castiel returned tentatively. He never used to have a problem with hugs, but it had become a problem over the last year when his body had started acting out on him anytime it wanted to, he was pretty certain that he wouldn't be getting a boner around his brother though, adopted or not it was still weird as shit. "I love you Castiel. And you're going to be fine, asking for help is a big step and I'll do better so that you feel like you can come to me in the future."

"It's not anything you did," he told his brother softly, closing his eyes and letting the other man squeeze him one last time before stepping away with an embarrassed shrug.

"Yea, well...whatever, Cassie. You might not be in high school anymore, but I'll still kick whoever's ass I need to to make sure you're safe, even if that ass is yours. So don't tempt me young man," Gabriel pointed a stern finger at him before smirking sadly and turning towards the double doors of the ward. "I'll try to make it back later tonight with your stuff, but if the dinner rush is crazy I will have to go help out at the restaurant so it might be tomorrow at the latest."

"That's fine, Gabby." Castiel said forcing a grateful smile on his face and using his brother's nickname from when they were kids and Gabe would just never shut the hell up about anything. "You know where to find me, it's not like I'm going anywhere."

His brother barked out a laugh before heading out the doors that Bobby buzzed open for him, waving as he went. Castiel turned towards the older man, licking his lips nervously and looking meaningfully at his messenger bag that was sitting right there, with at least half of the things he needed to get started on his homework.

"Not happening," Bobby replied, toeing the plastic tub under the nearest desk and handing Castiel the stack of clothes and toiletries he had removed from the bag Gabriel had brought him instead. "Dr. Mosely's going to talk to you in the morning and then maybe you can have your schoolwork, until then the only books you're allowed to touch are the ones your brother just brought you."

"But Garth said—"

"Garth says a lot of half-cocked bullshit," Bobby groused good-naturedly. "But I've been working with Dr. Mosely and her patients for long enough to know that she would have my head if I gave you that bag."

Castiel opened his mouth to protest again, but was cut off by the older nurse pulling his hat off and running a hand tiredly through his thinning hair. It was a gesture that reminded him so much of how his Dad's hair always stood on end when he was writing that all of the fight just drained out of him as he looked at the exhausted, weathered man before him.

"Cut me some slack, kid." Bobby said, eyeing the people that had started to trail down the hallway from the cafeteria some chattering and laughing with paint smears on their faces or clothes and others just passing by wordlessly like wispy ghosts. "It's your first night here and that is already going to be bad enough without you stressing out about some stupid homework assignment. Try to relax, I promise its not going to kill you."

He nodded meekly and headed down the hallway towards his room, intending to put away the clothes before finding some way to keep himself busy for the rest of the evening. Castiel dropped the stack heavily onto the top of the dresser, glancing over at Rufus who hadn't appeared to move since he had last seen him, the only evidence that he had being the fact that there was a partially consumed hamburger sitting on the cafeteria tray that had been placed on the other man's dresser.

He started sorting through the things Gabriel had brought him, huffing out a laugh when he saw a shirt for his brother's restaurant _Isolani_, a word that his brother heard Michael use once when talking about some company he was trying to buy out and liked, not realizing until later that it was a chess term and just made him look like a dork. But Gabe had ran with it, decorating the restaurant in stark whites and blacks and pretty much making it the most exclusive restaurant in the city within months of his appearance on _The Today Show_.

There were also a lot of sweat pants and pajama pants, shirts that were old and stretched and worn out so they would probably fit him even though he was taller than Gabriel by a good six inches. Castiel put it all away neatly and meticulously, arranging it like he did his own clothes back home even though there was barely enough to fill the top drawer of the dresser. He put his toiletries on top with the tallest bottles in the back, labels all turned the same way so that he could read them with or without his glasses on.

"Someone came by for you," Rufus muttered behind him, drawing his attention to the other man who was peering out at him from the tangled blankets he was wrapped up in. "Left you a note."

Castiel glanced towards his bed, noticing for the first time a sheet of folded drawing paper propped up on his dented pillow with his name 'Cas' written in precise, blocky script. He crossed over and picked up the paper, pushing his glasses up his nose as he flipped it open to see a drawing of one of the plastic mugs that had been on his lunch tray. It was very realistic with shading and little lines of steam coming out of the top of the glass; a string for a tea bag was hanging loosely out of the glass with a little tag attached to the end. Torn sugar packets and spilled granules were sitting next to the cup along with a spoon that had moisture beading off the top, threatening to drip down onto the white page beneath it.

He had never been very good at drawing, but an appreciation for art was instilled in him and all of his siblings by his mother when they were children, back when summers were spent going to every art museum in the city and traipsing around Coney Island with an appreciation for the Freakshow that most people never really had because Castiel could see the beauty in the deformities, just like he saw the beauty in Picasso's cubism. When he was younger being different had been something to aspire to, Castiel wasn't quite sure when that had stopped being true for him.

The drawing wasn't signed and he had no idea who he could have made such an impression on that they were already leaving him cryptic, beautiful anonymous presents, but on closer inspection he saw it. Written really small on the tea tag, looking so much like the logo for the tea had been drinking at lunch that at first he hadn't noticed it were the words, "Welcome to LICH. See you at the movies."

* * *

Author Note: So guess who had a day off and did nothing else but write fanfiction? This gal! So since I literally didn't go outside all day feel free to shower me with some human interaction via reviews. I see that some of you like this, tell me what you want! I live to please you guys.


	7. Chapter 7

Castiel was going to say something, figure out who had sent him the picture and at least thank them for it because it was beautiful and thoughtful and someone had spent a lot of time on it. They deserved to hear how much it meant to him to have someone not look though him like he was a pane of glass for once, but when he made it back to the common room eyeing the other patients that he passed in an effort to try to suss out who the mystery artist was he had realized exactly how many people had been in Pam's art lesson.

Practically everyone was sporting paint embedded under their fingernails or hands that were tinted graphite grey from moving over recently made pencils marks, there was no way in hell he was going to be able to figure out who had done the drawing, not without asking around and that was the whole stranger thing coming back to bite him because just the thought of talking to anyone besides Ash or Charlie or Dean or even fucking Crowley made his throat dry and achy.

So he stuck the drawing into the crossword puzzle book that Gabriel had brought him, being careful when he folded it into the newspaper print pages so that it wouldn't get messed up and went to sit on the couch behind Becky and Charlie who were sitting cross-legged on the floor with the coffee table between them playing a heated card game that he didn't really understand the rules of. He could play poker, Balthazar had taught him that way back in their freshman year and both of his brothers had learned the hard way that Castiel's poker face was a force to be reckoned with, but whatever they were playing involved a lot of hand slapping and excited, girly squealing that was giving him a bit of a headache.

"Cas," Charlie began seriously, marking down on the scoresheet that she was keeping for the two girls' game with a little, triumphant smirk on her face. "We missed you during art class."

"I don't draw," He said, running a hand over the back of his neck as he did because was this going to be a thing that happened every time he didn't do something that the rest of the floor seemed to do?

If so maybe he should just suck it up and go watch everyone else draw so that he didn't have to hear about it later. Even if it made his heart hurt from missing his mom and the way she smelled like turpentine faded acrylics and how the parts of her fingers where she would hold the charcoal that she used to sketch was permanently tinged black. He had always just enjoyed watching her work when he was a kid and maybe he could find the same peace watching other people do something similar.

"I don't either," Charlie continued, seeming unconcerned about the pained expression that Castiel was sure was on his face. "But there are a couple of people here who are really good, it's kind of fun to just screw around while they paint all serious and stuff. You should see mine and Dean's room; it looks like a kindergarten teacher's worst nightmare. Finger paintings as far as the eye can see."

He smiled weakly when he thought of what the pairs' room probably looked like, Dean's portion covered in posters of swimsuit models looking a lot like Balthazar's half of their dorm had before the Brit started dating Meg and taking decorating advice from Castiel with Charlie's finger paintings encroaching on the other man's side like a primary colored disease spreading across the walls. Castiel thought about sticking up his mystery drawing on his own wall, but if the artist hadn't even signed it maybe they were shy and he could understand that so maybe he would just keep it to himself, keep it something private that might make him feel better if he started getting down.

"Where is Dean, anyway?" Becky asked, licking her lips nervously and glancing back at Castiel who was sitting next to where she had her back propped up against the couch.

"You know how he gets after Lisa comes by," Charlie replied rolling her eyes at the other girl and making a jerk off motion with her hand that earned a snorting laugh from Becky. "Artists can be so temperamental."

"Yea well, he's missing out on all of the lovely company." Becky said giggling, leaning her shoulder into Castiel's leg and glancing up at him meaningfully before flinching back when the table jerked between her and Charlie, screeching slightly across the tiled floor. "Ow! Shit, Charlie."

"Body space, Becks." Charlie chided gently, giving the girl a pointed look that Castiel couldn't even begin to understand. "Don't want you getting in trouble."

"I fucking bet," Becky sneered, her mousy face looking suddenly vicious and feral as she clambered to her feet and tossed her cards down on the table before stalking over to sit next to Crowley who just smiled at her approach like a wolf charming an unsuspecting lamb.

"Ignore her," Charlie said, sighing to herself and gathering up the scattered cards, shuffling them expertly and holding the fanned out deck towards Castiel. "Pick a card."

"What was that about?" He asked, leaning forwards with his crossword puzzle book in his lap to pluck out a card. Castiel gave it a cursory glance, the ace of spades before placing it on the top of the deck like Charlie gestured for him to do.

"Becky is um...well I don't like to talk about other people's business," Charlie said softly, flipping through the cards with practiced movements turning them and shuffling them until she started to deal them out solitaire style. "Just know that she's not supposed to be within two arms lengths of any male patients."

"Dean was hugging her earlier," Castiel murmured, watching Charlie's sure movements enthralled when she flipped over the top card on her reserve pile, his ace of spades, giving it a satisfied little tap before smiling up at him.

"Is that your card?"

Castiel nodded quickly, knowing that his eyes were probably as round as saucers because sleight of hand was just another thing that he had never been good at as a kid even with all of the magic kits he bought at the joke shop that Gabriel liked to visit. "How did you do that?"

"Cas, they'd kick me out of the alliance of magicians if I told you that." Charlie said ruefully, offering him the pencil she had been using to keep score before starting to set out another game of solitaire, squared up in perfect little piles on the table before her. "And with Dean and Becks...it's different. She's surprisingly realistic when it comes to who she hits on. I'm kinda stunned she even tried with you, but then again the girl wouldn't respect a dibs if it bit her on the butt."

"Dibs?" Castiel asked softly, feeling the sweat that he hadn't even noticed make his shirt stick to his back.

He swallowed hard and flipped to the first page of his crossword puzzle book, drawing an idle little scribble in the corner of the page of some made up language that he and Anna used to use when they were younger and bonding over being the only two kids in the house after Gabe and Mike moved out. Charlie probably knew who sent him the drawing; he would only have to ask. She had been in there, right there finger painting with Dean and acting goofy and being an easy going early twenty something who was probably used to having secret admirers.

Cas was not that kind of twenty two year old. People didn't just give him things without some kind of hidden motive or special occasion being involved. Balthazar had bribed him with tickets to see the Pixies that he had claimed were for Castiel's birthday about six months ago, but really it was so that he and Meg could have the apartment to themselves for their anniversary, which just happened to fall the same day of the concert two weeks after his birthday. Coming home to find the chain lock in place inside the door, effectively keeping him out of his own house, had been an unwelcome reminder of how much of a third wheel he was amongst the people he claimed to be friends with.

Charlie ignored his question anyway, whether it was on purpose or not he couldn't tell because she was just so focused on her game that she might not have heard him. So he folded himself up on the couch with his puzzles, trying not to think of the drawing that he had spent twenty minutes sitting on the edge of his bed staring at and badgering Rufus about who had left it, but apparently the older man's back had been towards the door and all he had noticed was that it wasn't there before lunch and when he had gotten up to go to the bathroom later it was.

The drawing that was lurking folded up in the back of the book that he was holding, so close that if he wanted to he could pull it out and look at it again. His fingers itched to do so, to feel the way that whoever had drawn it had pressed the pencil firmly into the paper, leaving slight indentations like the spaces between piano keys that he used to feel against his fingertips hours after he had finished playing. Castiel could imagine soft, sleepy music playing in the background when the drawing had been coming to life under the artist's sure hands even though the cafeteria had in all likelihood probably been pretty loud like it had been at lunchtime during Lisa's art lesson. But it was special; just for him and Cas wasn't ready to share it with anyone else so it stayed buried in the book instead.

He lost himself in the simple, monotonous task that the crosswords provided him humming under his breath as he worked and periodically pushing his glasses back up his nose or running a hand through his hair when a clue for the puzzle stumped him. It was almost fun, working on something that wasn't really challenging but still required paying attention and there wasn't a deadline on it; which was honestly probably the best thing about the brain-teaser. Castiel could put it down and pick it up at his leisure and not feel like his chest was caving in or the world was going to spin off of its axis if he didn't finish it by a certain time. It was freeing.

Castiel didn't even notice that it was dinnertime until a paper was being waved in front of his nose by Ellen; it was the same menu thing that Jo had given him earlier where he was supposed to circle what he wanted to eat the next day.

"Need that before you go to sleep, sugar. Otherwise you'll be eating burgers and grilled cheese again tomorrow." Ellen said, giving him a wink before heading back towards the nurse's station and a stack of the same kind of papers that were waiting for her on the desk there.

"The grilled cheese is actually pretty epic," Charlie said, stretching from where she had moved to sit beside him on the couch at some point; reading her faded, well-worn copy of _The Hobbit_ that he had seen her with. "Y'know for hospital food. I'm gonna go see if Dean is up to coming to dinner go grab us a table, will you Cas?"

Part of him wanted to ask why the other man wouldn't be coming to dinner, Dean had seemed fine earlier. In fact, he was probably one of the most upbeat people in this place besides Crowley who just seemed to _want_ to be in the hospital more than anything else, but after Charlie's cryptic explanation for why Becky wasn't supposed to touch people he figured he might be better off not knowing what was going on with his green-eyed tour guide.

Castiel headed towards the cafeteria, taking the long way around so that he could drop off his puzzle book in his room. Pausing there long enough to change into a shirt that wasn't entirely soaked in sweat and smooth out the creases that he had put into the drawing when he had folded it. He cast around for somewhere he could put it without it getting torn or crinkled before finally deciding that under his pillow was probably the safest place, that's where he had kept important stuff as a kid; stuff that he wanted to look at before he went to sleep or would keep bad dreams away through the powers of osmosis and a child's imagination.

When he rounded the corner at the bottom of the hall, slipping his cardigan back on over the old grey New York Marathon t-shirt that Gabriel had brought him that Castiel knew really belonged to Michael because his oldest brother was the runner in the family, he paused outside of the door marked 'Bradbury/720904' and 'Winchester/091808' wondering if he should check to see if Dean and Charlie were ready, but he could hear hushed voices coming from inside the dimly lit room.

He chanced a peek inside, ducking back when he saw Dean pulling a long sleeved plaid button down shirt on, his heart doing a weird little flip when he saw how muscled the other man was and feeling entirely self conscious of his own wiry frame that used to be strong too before stress and nausea had cause him to stop eating more than a couple of bites a day. Dean looked like the kind of guy that ended up on the covers of the Men's Health magazines that Michael kept around his swanky Upper West Side apartment and Castiel...well, didn't. No wonder no one wanted him.

"I just feel stupid, Charlie." Dean muttered to the girl petulantly where she was sitting on one of the beds in the room, playing with a couple of pencils that she had found there holding them like chopsticks and sighing to herself.

"I miss sushi," She said, ignoring Dean's statement and clicking the pencils together in his direction like she was going to pinch him.

"Not helpful," Dean groused, hurriedly doing up the buttons on his shirt and tugging on the sleeves with a grimace. "I should've just kept it to myself, I don't know why I let you talk me into doing such bonehead shit sometimes."

"Because I'm always right about these kind of things," Charlie said, nudging his boots in his direction before standing up and putting her hands on her hips impatiently. "Besides I want to see you happy and you two would be the absolute cutest. I'm not going to be here forever Dean, I need someone to be the angel on your shoulder once I'm gone."

Castiel decided that he had heard enough, maybe Lisa wasn't really a therapist just like a volunteer or something. It probably wouldn't be against the rules for her to date a patient once they discharged and it really shouldn't bother him so much that Charlie was trying to set Dean up with her. He didn't even like guys, okay maybe he appreciated them from afar sometimes, but it always became weird when he started thinking of it in terms beyond that; he could barely look Alfie in the face anymore after giving the other man his number so that he could call about some GRE flashcards that Cas had made. It had felt too much like begging for a date and the pitying look on the other man's face had just confirmed that he really had been acting weird around his study partner even though he had been trying his damndest not to.

After seeing all of the shit that Michael dealt with in junior high and high school, getting picked on by every intolerant jock in school for just being the president of the Gay/Straight Alliance; Castiel didn't want to imagine what kind of flack he would get for acting on any bicurious feeling he might have. No, straight was easier. He could just pine after Meg forever until someone finally got desperate enough that they settled for him; Cas knew that the kind of relationship that his parents had had together wasn't in the cards for him. Not as long as the girl he was in love with was dating his best friend.

He was still trying to sort out his feelings when he headed into the cafeteria and sat down at the same table that Ash was already sitting at, still wearing the thick driving gloves that he had been wearing earlier and swearing up and down to Bobby that he could hear secret government radio chatter through the fillings in his teeth anytime metal touched his skin. Just when Castiel had started to think that maybe there were more than a handful of normal people in this place, he heard something else that threw him for a loop. Dick and Crowley were speculating at a nearby table about how muffins made out of babies might taste and Ruby and Lilith were laughing over something like they hadn't been threatening to murder each other just hours before.

"Hey, Cas."

Castiel looked up from where he had dropped his gaze to the scared wooden tabletop, flinching away from a pretty imposing glare that Dick had leveled at him once the older man had realized that Cas was eavesdropping. Dean was standing there, looking less self-assured than he had earlier in the day and biting on his lip nervously before quickly taking the chair next to him, again at the head of the table with Charlie settling on the other side of him with an amused smile on her face.

"Hello, Dean." Castiel said, clearing his throat and nodding thanks at Bobby when he sat a tray with grilled cheese and tomato soup in front of him on the table.

It smelled amazing and when Dean wordlessly moved his tea to sit next to Castiel's tray again, looking at him in askance before taking his glass of ice water off of his tray in exchange that little gesture is what steeled his resolve that he was going to fucking eat this, at least some of it. He could see the worry in Dean and Charlie's faces when he didn't immediately reach for his silverware and it reminded him of Anna; how she would always always ask if he was ok. To the point that it became annoying, but he could never disappoint her so he would choke down whatever food was in front of him and just pray that it wouldn't come up later even though it almost always did.

Dean smiled widely at him when he took the first bite of grilled cheese, nodding with surprised eyes towards Charlie when she commented that she had told him so, right? Castiel instinctively smiled back at Dean, because something about the other man's elation was infectious and then he blushed because the image of Dean walking around his room with his red and gold plaid shirt unbuttoned flashed suddenly through his mind only the memory had changed so that Dean was smiling just for him.

And that shouldn't make him hard, probably wouldn't have if it had been anyone else, but Castiel could admit that Dean was a good looking guy. All strong jaw line and wide shoulders and light brown hair that had probably never even seen an emo phase in its perfect life. The kind of guy that girls swooned over and called rugged, the kind of guy that Castiel definitely _did not_ have dreams about when he watched too many episodes of Dr. Sexy M.D. in a row with Michael or Meg. Dreams that involved all kinds of things that he had only read about online along with all of his other knowledge about sex because his practical knowledge was non-fucking-existent, not that he had dreams like that about other guys. No.

He shifted in his seat and just thanked god that he hadn't decided to put on any of the pants that Gabriel had brought him because there would be no way he could hide an erection in any material that was thinner than denim if he had to suddenly bolt out of here in embarrassment. Castiel just willed it away, tried to think of things that had always worked in the past like stray kittens or starving children, stuff that would make the guilt override the hormones and make him sad probably, but bonerless and not scaring off the few friends he was trying to make here.

"Are we still playing?" Ash asked around a mouthful of lasagna, gesturing with his plastic fork towards Charlie. "Or did we decide that Bradbury won yesterday?"

"The game never ends, Ash." Dean stated seriously, taking a bite of his own grilled cheese after dunking it into the bowl of soup on his tray. "Its not a winner or losers kind of thing."

"Dude, you have so many games that I never know which one ends up with someone coming out on top or not." Ash grumbled before getting a serious look on his face. "I'll go first, Edwin Armstrong."

"Who the hell is that?" Charlie asked, sounding incredulous and winking at Castiel conspiratorially as she elbowed Ash in the side. "You made that one up."

"Did not, "Ash protested. "Guy invented FM radio, he's the reason we're all going to get brain tumors. Jumped out of a building."

"Oh-kay," Dean said rolling his eyes. "Um...Van Gogh, shot himself in the chest."

"You always say Van Gogh," Becky muttered, sliding her tray onto the other end of the table with an apologetic glance towards Charlie. "I don't think this is a nice game by the way. Its freakin' morbid."

"You just say that because you aren't any good at it," Ash drawled.

"Francesca Woodman," Dean interrupted, pointing his finger at Becky with a teasing smile on his face. "If you stay you play, Becks. Woodman, photographer, concrete nosedive."

"What is the game?" Castiel asked, furrowing his brow because he knew who Van Gogh was of course, but Woodman was a pretty obscure artist.

He and his mom had gone to the Guggenheim to see a showcase of her work just months before the diagnosis came, he could still remember how happy she had been then even though what they had thought at the time were ulcers had kept her from eating a lot when he had taken her to Three Guys for lunch. Greek food still made his stomach churn and he hadn't been back to their favorite restaurant since she had died.

"They're naming people who've committed suicide." Becky said disapprovingly.

"But not just that," Charlie added quickly. "You have to know what they did for a living and how they offed themselves or you're out."

"What happens when there's only one person left?"

"I don't think we've figured that out yet," Ash said with a shrug. "That's probably why no one ever really wins, no incentive. Right, Dean?"

Castiel saw the other man glance at him and rub at his jaw in a contemplative way before nodding his head slowly. He remembered what Dean had said to him earlier about there not being any incentive to keep his level and Cas wondered not for the first time what his new friend was actually doing here when he seemed so together and popular and outgoing.

"Jon Dough!" Becky said loudly before lowering her voice quickly when Bobby shot her a disapproving look. "Porn star, hung himself."

"You would," Charlie laughed, tossing a piece of crust off of her grilled cheese at Becky who was eating some plate full of steamed vegetables that looked unappetizing as hell. "Cleopatra, queen of Egypt, purposely got a snake to bite her."

"Hardcore," Ash marveled, pushing his tray away with a sigh. "You in, Cas? If you stay, you play."

"He doesn't have to play," Dean muttered under his breath, glancing at him again with a faint pinkish tinge on his cheeks. "You don't have to play, Cas."

"No, it's fine." Castiel said, carefully putting down his spoon and picking up his tea-something chamomile this time, probably so it would make everyone calm and sleepy. "Um...Bob Welch, guitarist, Van Gogh'd himself."

"Fleetwood Mac." Dean said softly beside him, smirking and biting his lip at the same time like the fact that Castiel knew anything about the band had surprised him, but that he hadn't meant to let it show.

Cas decided that it was an expression that could compete with some of Meg's best adorable pouty faces. He cleared his throat in an effort to get his mind off of that track; Dean was straight, _he_ was straight. Being in a mental ward was not any excuse for suddenly deciding he could indulge in those kind of thoughts, it only led to trouble and for him that meant panic attacks and cold showers and sleepless nights with a stomach that wouldn't stop roiling.

They continued going around the table with the game for a couple more turns, Castiel kept naming musicians just because that's what he knew; he noticed that Dean kept doing artists and authors, all of Charlie's were women, and Ash was just all over the place with politicians and serial killers and athletes. Becky got knocked out after two turns because everyone voted that David Carradine did not count since his death via autoerotic asphyxiation had been an accident.

It wasn't until he was watching Dean laugh, little crinkles forming at the corners of his eyes and the horrible fluorescent lighting playing off of the natural highlights in his hair when he tipped it back to clutch and his side and try to get his breathing back under control that Castiel realized not only had he eaten practically everything on his tray, including the lime green jello that Gabriel would have gagged over if he had seen him eating it, but that he wasn't feeling nauseous. Not even in the slightest.

And then he realized he was staring, because everyone had suddenly gotten really quiet and Dean wasn't laughing anymore just staring at him too. Charlie was sitting beside Dean with her eyes wide and covering her mouth in the same way that Anna had when they had watched their kitten (now the most annoyingly cuddly cat ever) carefully curl up in the crook of their dad's neck one time when he had fallen asleep at his desk while writing.

Castiel cleared his throat and searched for something to do with himself, something that would take everyone's attention off of him because he wasn't used to it and it was too much too fast for him to deal with. He got up, breathing a thankful sigh that his erection had faded to something he could write off as just being the fabric of his clothes laying weird and went to put his tray on the big cart that he had put the one from lunch on, muttering that he would see everyone in the common room when the movie started and escaped to his room.

"Someone's got a crush," Crowley sing-songed when he passed the other man in the hallway and all Castiel could do was duck his head and wrap his arms around his chest and walk faster.

It was nothing because Cas was in love with Meg. Falling all over himself, worshipping the ground she walked on, putting his trench coat over puddles so that she could walk across in love with Meg. _Casablanca_, _Gone With the Wind_, old timey movie in love with Meg. But Dean was nice and funny and he didn't have to try so hard to not be weird around the other man; try to hide how bad things had actually gotten with the not eating and being depressed like he did with Meg because they were in a psych ward and being weird was kind of a prerequisite for being here.

Meg had her problems, her family that she hardly spoke to and all of the stuff with not being able to hold down a job, but it was normal stuff and she could deal with it. She had Balthazar to help her and Cas had no one, it was nice to feel like someone might understand and not judge him for the crazy things going on in his head half the time. And Dean was his friend, it was nothing.

It was not a crush, he just admired the other man for being so easy going and intelligent about cool stuff like art and books without even seeming to have to work at it like Cas did with school. Dean was just...perfect. In a way that he never would be and it was not a fucking crush.

He spent about twenty minutes rationalizing all of this out in his room, listening to the deep, even breathing of his roommate that told him Rufus was asleep and staring out the window at the rapidly darkening Brooklyn skyline like it would open up and reveal that his life was just one big joke with a very unfunny punch line. Castiel had already decided that God was a malicious bully, cackling over their dilemmas like a schoolboy burning up ants with a magnifying glass, but really this was all getting to be a bit much.

When he went to join everyone else in the common room, Castiel was surprised to find that there were only about fifteen people out of the thirty or so he had figured out were on the floor sprawled out on the various couches and chairs that had been turned to face the television mounted in the corner more fully. The movie had already started playing and Charlie earned a rousing shush from everyone in the room when she squeaked and waved him over to where she and Dean had commandeered a couch front and center of the collective group.

Castiel settled beside her, hugging the armrest on his right hand side like it would be the only thing that could save him; like in the event of a plane crash it could turn into a flotation device. He huffed out an unamused chuckle and told himself not to look over at Dean when he realized that his gaze had already shifted over to the other man who had his arm draped loosely across the back of the couch behind Charlie's shoulders and was watching the screen with a fond expression on his face, mouthing the lines to himself seconds before they were spoken by the actors.

He tried not to think about how Dean's hand was right there almost touching his shoulder, the sleeve of his plaid shirt hiking up a bit to show off the musculature of his wrist and the veins that weren't as pronounced as Castiel's under the other man's tan skin. Castiel remembered how Dean had just draped an arm over his shoulder like it was nothing when he had been giving him the tour so maybe it wouldn't be weird if he leaned into the other man's hand just a little bit. He wrote it off as trying to get comfortable as he shifted a little closer to Charlie on the couch and not as wanting to feel like he could breathe again like had happened earlier when Dean had touched him.

Because he was having just a little bit of trouble breathing and swallowing and sweating and maybe he should have just stayed in his room and done crossword puzzles until he passed out. If he passed out; Castiel was feeling entirely too awake, chamomile tea be damned and it didn't help that when he finally felt Dean's fingers brush against his upper shoulder through his cardigan it was like someone had just shocked him with a live wire and he flinched in the exact same way too.

He could feel someone looking at him, but he didn't tear his eyes off of the screen and Billy Murray because if only he could go back and do over a couple of days until he got it right maybe his life would be better. And he didn't want to see the question on her face if it was Charlie and if Dean was looking at him he definitely didn't want to see that because it was going to just ruin his carefully constructed wall of self control that he had just spent all of that time building so that he wouldn't dwell too much to the image that was flitting through his mind of Dean on the cover of one of his mom's old romance novels.

Castiel tried not to move when he felt something touching him again, slow and tentatively trailing across the seam at the top of his shoulder on his cardigan and up to the stretched out neckline of Michael's old shirt where it was too wide and left his skin exposed along the curve where his neck met his shoulder. He closed his eyes and tried to breathe, swallowing hard when Dean's hand stopped there, just shy of touching his skin and settled there like it was the most comfortable position for his arm to be in.

And it probably was, there was no way that Dean could possibly know what it was doing to him to feel someone, anyone be that close to touching him. Someone who wasn't family and his body was miles beyond caring that it wasn't Meg and it wasn't a girl because he was so fucking hard that he thought he was going to explode.

Castiel couldn't remember the last time that he had felt someone who wasn't one of his siblings willingly and knowingly press their skin against his and if he had known how touch deprived he was then maybe he would've spent the time in his room jerking off to his old standby Meg fantasies instead of having a mini-freak out over something that was probably just being caused by him not being used to someone being so nice to him. That had to be what it was with Dean, because it was not a crush.

* * *

Author Note: It's happening with this one too guys. The thing where my chapters get longer and longer because my characters just want to do stuff that I have to write because its adorable or genius and I only freaking think of it when I sit down to write. So I'm sorry that this one is so much longer than the others, but I'm not really because you like it don't you? My insanity must be catching.

ALSO, Athenasisters I will f'n marry you I swear to all that's holy you complimenting lady you. Your reviews are a joy to wake up to!


	8. Chapter 8

He threw it up, all of it.

As soon as the movie was over and the credits were rolling and Dean stopped touching him the nausea hit him like a tidal wave pulling him under and suffocating him; tasting like lime green bile and everything that was wrong with his life. Cas barely made it to his and Rufus's ensuite half bath before it came pouring out of him, burning his throat and making tears well up in his eyes as he fumbled to keep his glasses from falling into the toilet while he heaved over the porcelain bowl.

"Dude, you weren't kidding about food not agreeing with you," Dean commented poking his head around the corner of the door before the rest of his body followed and he leaned against the doorframe with his nose wrinkling in distaste.

"Yea, man." Charlie agreed, standing on tiptoe to peek over his shoulder at Castiel as he firmly shut the lid of the toilet and flushed it before setting his glasses on the back of the tank. "That's super gross."

_Kill me now._ He thought burying his face in his arms where he had crossed them on top of the toilet and groaning weakly at the pair, hoping that it would be enough to make them go away so that he could feel terrible and wallow in how miserably confusing his life was without an audience to judge him for it.

"Hey it's okay, Cas." Dean said and Castiel felt him crouch down next to him, rubbing soothing circles on his back and why did it make him feel so much better to have the other man touching him? "You kept it down better than I did my first day."

Maybe it was just having anyone touch him at all because when Charlie moved into the small space to help Dean pull him to his feet so that he could brush his teeth using the toothbrush and toothpaste that the other man retrieved for him from the top of his dresser, the warm feeling in the pit of his stomach didn't go away when it was just the redhead there with him. He smiled weakly at Charlie and watched her skip over to the doorway of the bedroom, peeking out down either side of the hallway warily before spinning back to look at him meaningfully in the bathroom mirror.

"What?" he croaked out, ducking his head to get some of the water that was running out of the tap so that he could rinse out his mouth again, ignoring how close Dean was to him sitting on the toilet lid and fiddling with his glasses with a small smile on his face.

"Nothing," Charlie said quickly, meandering around the room a little bit until she plopped down on his bed, bouncing on it a bit and pointing questioningly at Rufus's sleeping form. She shrugged and swung her feet off the floor. "Just not used to walking on the wild side like Dean is."

"Translate," he said weakly holding his hand out to the other man for his glasses which Dean placed carefully in his hand.

"We're not supposed to go in each other's rooms," Dean explained with a sheepish smile. "Pretty much the one rule I've never broken actually so I guess you're a special exception, Cas."

"Lucky me," he said sarcastically, sliding his glasses back on and instantly feeling horrible for being mean to Dean because the other man's smirk faltered and faded before he told them all he had to go and left the room with a walk that was devoid of the swaggering confidence that Castiel had already come to associate with the other patient.

"Open mouth, insert foot." Charlie deadpanned, scooting back on his bed towards the headboard and picking up his pillow to hold it against her chest.

He held out a hand to stop her before she ended up sitting on his drawing, but she saw it before he said anything. And the look on her face was just too weird, too much like how she had looked at him in the cafeteria when she had caught him staring at Dean for Castiel not to blush all the way to the tips of his ears and start to sweat.

"This is nice," she said, running her fingers over the paper and a childish part of him wanted to snatch it out of her hand so that she didn't smear the graphite and make the drawing fade before he got a chance to even figure out who sent it to him. "Very detailed, you must really like tea."

"I didn't do it," Castiel admitted, plopping down on the bed across from her and clasping his hands together in his lap while she leaned back on his bed and placed the drawing in the space between them on the sheets that had gotten twisted during his earlier nap. "I uh...I was talking to my brother and when I came back it was here. Someone left it for me and Rufus said he didn't see who it was."

"So that wasn't your boyfriend or something you were talking to earlier?"

"No," Castiel said quickly, shaking his head and swallowing and trying not to show how much that question both offended him (Gabe as his boyfriend? Gross.) and scared him (Was it obvious to other people that his thoughts sometimes strayed towards not completely straight?). "Gabriel is my brother, definitely not my boyfriend. Brother."

"Oh, well. That's probably why he seemed so worried about you." The other girl nodded down at the paper and widened her eyes conspiratorially. "Someone must like you."

"You think so?" he asked, fixing where one of the corners had gotten folded over at some point and smoothing the paper against the hard, hospital mattress.

"Uh huh," Charlie said smiling at him toothily. "That's not the kind of thing you just do for someone you aren't interested in. It probably took them awhile, it's really good. Like professional artist good."

"It is, isn't it?" Castiel said, letting his mouth quirk up when he thought of all of the artist jargon his mom would be spewing out if one of her students had turned this in to her. He figured that it would all be good and it would have made her laugh when she noticed the secret message on the tag. "I just wish I knew who left it."

"They didn't sign it?" Charlie said sounding irritated as she leaned over the drawing. "Fucking moron. How the hell are you gonna know who likes you if they don't even bother to sign it?"

"Yea and pretty much everyone was in that art class with Lisa," Cas offered, getting excited now that he had another person who might be able to help him figure out the mystery behind his secret admirer. "I was hoping they would do something during the movie so I would know who they were, but I guess I was distracted. I probably missed it if they tried to get my attention."

"You were pretty spaced out, dude." Charlie said, shaking her head at the drawing one last time like she was disgusted with it now before looking back up at him mischievously. "What was making you so jumpy?"

"Nothing," Castiel said quickly, shaking his head and trying to figure out exactly where he had lost control of the conversation; trying not to think of Dean who he had upset by being callous and ungrateful, again.

Meg did this to him too, twisted around the things he was talking about so the conversation got back to what was going on with her and he couldn't remember what story he had been trying to tell her in the first place. Girls must have a special class in school to learn how to do this shit because all of the guys he knew just talked and didn't layer everything with subtext like females did. It was always so confusing and frustrating that sometimes he wished he really were gay so he didn't have to deal with it anymore.

"Bradbury," Bobby barked from the door way, crossing his arms disapprovingly over his chest. "Get to your own damn room. Winchester's tomfoolery has been rubbing off on you, girl."

"Don't blame Dean," Charlie sighed, climbing to her feet and heading towards the door. She spun quickly on her heel and pointed at the drawing that he had picked up to hold loosely in one of his hands, unconsciously tracing over the lines with the fingers of his other hand. "Someone likes you Cas and we are going to get to the bottom of it. You can be the Velma to my Daphne, we'll Mystery Machine this bitch."

Castiel laughed at that and waved the other girl away, shrugging at Bobby who just glowered at him before stalking off behind her down the hallway. He felt better after throwing up, lighter and like he could get some stuff accomplished. It was when he felt like this that he got homework done; that he had inspired moments where he would mow through his lists and crumple up a whole fistful before downing half a pot of coffee and motoring off to class once the sun came up. But he didn't have his homework and he may not even get his homework if the therapist decided he couldn't have it.

He had to remind himself to breathe after that thought flittered through his mind because it was just so frightening that he had to figure out some way to talk the doctor into giving him his book bag or his brain was just going to implode from worrying about school. But since he couldn't work on a paper, he decided to make a list of all of the things he wanted to accomplish while he had a professional psychologist at his disposal to help him.

Cas grabbed the puzzle book that Gabe had given him and marked the page he was working on before pulling out the pencil that he had used to hold his spot and flipping to the back cover where the smooth, blank page glared out at him blindingly white just begging to be filled with an orderly numbered list that he could cross off and feel accomplished about finishing. He took the spot Charlie had been in, kicking off his shoes and pressing his back against the wall with the pillow in his lap for a table. The drawing ended up propped against an empty, upside down water glass on the nightstand so that it wouldn't get wrinkled or torn from being on the bed.

He tried to think of a title for the list, but titles had never really been his strong point even when he was writing papers it was usually the last thing that he figured out so Cas just wrote _'To Do:'_ at the top of the page and left it at that.

_To Do:_

_1. Get back on meds _(He didn't like taking the meds, they made him feel numb even more so than he already was if that was possible and lose chunks of time, but they also helped him be able to eat and sleep and at least make his body function normally even if his mind couldn't.)

_2. Figure out who sent drawing _(This one he figured he could cross of early, especially now that he had Charlie helping him.)

_3. Read a book for fun _(Castiel couldn't remember the last book that he had read that wasn't for school and it nagged at him just a bit so this was his one kooky thing he was putting on his list, a reward to give him a break for working so hard to do the rest.)

_4. Catch up on homework/Study for the GRE_ (Those were ones he kinda had to do, there was no leaving those off of the list even if his stomach heaved when he thought of sorting through the research for his papers or taking one more practice exam.)

_5. _

Castiel ran out of steam at number five, his enthusiasm waning now that he was thinking about all of the work he still had to finish for school and how had he even managed to forget about it at all?! This place was screwing with his head already, making him feel like he could forget about his responsibilities and commitments when he couldn't or his life would be even more fucked up than it already was. There was no way he was going to be able to sleep, no way in hell. So he wrapped his cardigan tight around his shoulders and ventured out into the darkened hallway.

The lights were only halfway on, mostly up by the nurse's station so he wasn't going to go that way, even if that's where the people who were here to help him lived. Bobby or Ellen could probably give him something to help him sleep, but he felt like bugs were crawling under his skin and sometimes the only thing that helped with that was walking or riding around Brooklyn with his pepper spray and his headphones in and he couldn't even do that because he was locked in this fucking building like a caged animal.

He turned right instead of left, away from the lights and the faint clicking of a keyboard that was drifting down the hallway along with muffled snores and people talking in their sleep. Castiel had no idea what he was doing only that he needed to be somewhere dark and quiet where the silence would keep him from hearing anything that wasn't his own heartbeat or breathing. When he was a kid he would hide under his bed or in the closet until his mom or dad or sometimes Michael found him, picked him up, and tucked him back into bed, but he hadn't done it for a long time and he didn't know why it appealed so much to him now.

Castiel hesitated for just a second before ducking into one of the showers at the darkened end of the hallway, keeping the lights off and his breathing quiet as the residual moisture on the tiled floor seeped through his socks and made him shiver. He sat down on the floor with his knees to his chest and wrapped his arms around his legs, letting his head fall back until it clunked against the wall behind him and all he could feel was the dull throb where he skull had hit the tile until that faded too and he could feel nothing. It was kind of comforting to feel nothing, he had grown accustomed to numbness over the last year and after all of the emotions of the day he needed this safe place where he could just be in a vacuum for a while.

Only it wasn't a perfect vacumm, as much as he may want to just float around in space for a couple of minutes until he could feel his pulse pounding in his fingertips this shower wasn't space and his head wouldn't explode from lack of oxygen no matter how much he may want it to sometimes. And he could hear all of the whispered conversation going on in the room adjacent to the shower like he was living inside of a stereo speaker.

It was Dean and Charlie so he should get up and leave before he had to listen to the other man mooning over Lisa, because he didn't think he could handle listening to that without throwing up again. But something about his friend's voices was soothing in a way that was different from a vacuum, like he could listen to Dean talk to him in the dark forever and it would eventually make everything better. Charlie too, she had one of those steady audio book voices like his mom had, it reminded him of home.

"Charlie, I don't know why you're pissed." Dean's muffled voice echoed around him. "It was an honest mistake, okay? I fucking forgot."

"Bull fucking shit, Winchester." Charlie's voice replied. "You're self-sabotaging and I will not sit around while you spiral again. The pity party ends now, tomorrow you're going to do something decisive about this whole clusterfuck and that's the last I want to hear about it."

"Alright, mom." Dean replied sarcastically.

"I wish I was your mom Dean, I would just grab your ear and drag you over there and make you stop feeling like you don't deserve to be happy."

"Yea well if you were my mom, you'd be dead Charlie." Dean snapped, louder in the small dark space around Castiel, making his heart hurt at the pain he could almost picture on the other man's face when he said that.

"Don't pull the dead parent card on me, Dean. Get your shit together, grow a pair, and go after what you want like your life depends on it, alright? You never know what day will be your last and I need you to stop wasting your days blaming yourself for what happened."

"Can we not? Not tonight?" Dean asked sounding suddenly desperate. "I'll take care of it tomorrow, okay? I promise. I just...I don't want a nightmare tonight. Not tonight, Charlie."

"I'm sorry," Charlie said it so soft that he almost didn't hear it, but it echoed around him like the world's saddest lullaby and he had to go back to his room before he started crying just because of how sincere and regretful the other girl sounded.

Castiel fell out of the shower, fumbling for the door so that it didn't slam shut behind him and give him away as his eyes adjusted to the slightly brighter light of the hallway after having sat in complete darkness in the tiled room. He stripped off his damp socks and padded back to his room, peeking around the corner with as much stealth as he could manage before rushing the fifteen feet or so to his room on the other side of the hallway.

He pulled off his cardigan, wincing when the cool air in his room hit his shirt that was damp with sweat and moisture from the shower. Cas gathered up a change of clothes and went back into the small bathroom, pulling on the too short pajama pants and the faded shirt that was actually one of his that he had left at Gabriel's apartment once after spending the night locked out of his and Balthazar's apartment when his roommate and Meg ignored his calls and his insistent knocking because they were probably having loud sex somewhere inside.

By the time he climbed into the bed he was shivering and his teeth were chattering and it wasn't even that cold, but he felt like crying and he didn't know why; it made his chest feel like it was full of sharp, stabbing icicles. He wasn't entirely sure that falling asleep was something he could manage as long as he was this sad, but his body had a way of tricking him; of doing whatever it wanted whenever it wanted and Castiel really should have stopped assuming that he was in control of anything that happened in his life a long time ago.

His mom's ringtone was this song, _Goodbye Toulouse _by this British proto-punk band from the 70s called The Stranglers. It had been Balthazar who suggested the song for him one night back when his roommate and Meg were still just friends with benefits and he could still eat and function and go out on Saturday nights to karaoke bars with his fake ID and his friends that he hadn't chased away yet. Amelia Shurley had thought that it was a vast improvement over the last song he had picked for her, _Art Teacher_ by Rufus Wainwright because Cas could admit that the song about a student being in love with her teach was just a little bit extra super creepy too.

That's what woke him up, that song playing. And he shot out of his bed to grab his phone that he always always put on the nightstand next to his bed. It was too early for his mom to be calling, the fucking sun wasn't even up yet and the only boxes he had managed to unpack the night before were the ones with toilet paper and his cellphone charger before they had collapsed into bed together after getting promised a homemade breakfast in the morning if he just phonied up a back rub. Which had turned into more than just a back rub because he still couldn't believe that this was his life and that it had finally started making sense.

The Brit had been surprisingly cool about the whole thing, even helping Cas when they decided to move in together and finding a new roommate that was a flight attendant or something and was never home to complain about his messes or his one night stands that Cas knew he was indulging in again now that he was single for the first time in almost four years. So it had all worked out, he had his _one_ and didn't lose his best friend in the process; stuff like this only happened in sappy romantic comedies or 'Friends-esque' sitcoms.

"Leave it," the mound of blankets next to him muttered, sounding sleepy and hoarse and soothing. "She'll call back, I told her we'd go to lunch with her."

"Where?" Castiel asked, scrubbing a hand through his hair and flopping back down onto the bed, moving until he was spooned up against the other body in the bed and could press a kiss into the tan, freckled skin that was peeking out of the Sonic Youth shirt of his that could probably not be classified as his anymore because Cas never got to wear it.

"Mmmmhmm," came the responding hum, sounding deeper and reverberating in his chest that he had pressed against warm body in front of him in a way that made him break out in goosebumps. "I'm gonna need some pizza, so..."

"You always want pizza," Castiel teased, wrapping an arm around the waist that felt firmer than he had been expecting, but made him muse that if their places were reversed he wouldn't mind having a solid warmth pressed up against his back. "Paulie Gee's?"

"Roberta's," he replied arching back into his arms with a stretch and a sigh. "Your mom is on a vegan diet remember?"

"Fucking ulcers ruin everything," Cas muttered, kissing on the neck that wasn't tangled up in long dark hair, but he could steel feel the short lighter, brown strands tickling his forehead.

He reached the stubbled jaw and could feel his that the chest he was running his hands over was flat and taunt instead of fleshy and soft with perfect breasts that he had jerked off to more times than he could ever possibly hope to count, before he realized that maybe this wasn't Meg. Castiel's brow furrowed in confusion and he pulled on the wide shoulders in front of him until the grumpily protesting form fell back onto his arm with a solid, pleasant heft.

"What?" Dean asked, looking up at him with a sleepy confused frown on his face. "Alright, fine. Paulie Gee's does vegan too, you caught me Cas. I just wanted to see if I could finally get you to buy me one of those t-shirts I've been hinting that I wanted forever."

"The one with the wizard," Castiel said nodding and wondering why he could have ever thought it was Meg in the bed with him.

"I knew you weren't blind," Dean said smirking at him and biting his lip like he did when he was feeling shy and playful. "Those glasses are a ruse, my good sir. A ruse!"

"You're a ruse," Cas replied, fiddling with the buttons on the red and gold plaid button down that Dean had for some reason slept in.

That couldn't be very comfortable, he should've borrowed that Sonic Youth shirt, it looked really good on him or...maybe he thought it would? But it wasn't borrowing anymore, their stuff could just be all jumbled up together and Cas didn't even care because half of the time they shared clothes ever since he had been able to start gaining weight again under Dean's watchful eye and his mom and Charlie plying food on him like he was starving to death.

"I had the weirdest dream," Castiel said rubbing at his temples in confusion because there were all of these fuzzy, half-formed memories floating around in his head of him and Dean and his mom and maybe he needed some coffee or more sleep because it was irritating how the images were right there out of his reach.

"About?" Dean asked settling his arms around Cas's neck and pulling him down on top of him with a little pleased hum as Cas settled into the other man and propped his chin up with his fist pressed into the larger man's chest so that he could think.

"I think I dreamed that my mom died," Castiel said with a shudder, seeing the green eyes that he fell into just about a million times a day widen in horror. "And um...that you were Meg, maybe? It's really blurry. Why are you sleeping in jeans?"

"Why are _you _sleeping in jeans?" Dean countered, tucking his hands into Castiel's back pockets as both men looked down at the sweat drenched NYC Marathon shirt he was wearing along with jeans that were damp along the cuffs around his ankles.

"I know I changed clothes," Castiel said feeling his stomach turn over in confusion even as he felt hands creeping up under his shirt to smooth along his back and trace over the vertebrae of his spine. "I was wearing pajamas, I know that I was."

"When I fell asleep you were wearing nothing," Dean murmured leaning up to kiss him until Cas gave up on trying to figure out what was going on and just relented, moving his lips against the other man's mouth and marveling at how effortless it was to kiss another person.

It shouldn't be so surprising; he kissed Dean all the time. Didn't he?

Granted he hadn't kissed anyone in quite a while before he and the other man kissed for the first time and most of those had been drunken, self-hating fumblings that he did to try to take his mind off of Meg and Balthazar practically having sex in the middle of the dance floor of whatever club they were at. But those cupid's bow lips should be as familiar as playing the piano to him, so why was he having trouble catching his breath as he gasped against the other man's mouth when he felt teeth graze his bottom lip?

He felt Dean tugging on his shirt, pulling it off and over his head and Cas couldn't deal with that. He knew that he wasn't nearly as good looking as the other man, his muscles had withered when he hadn't been eating and it was only since getting back on meds and out of the hospital that his shoulders and biceps had started to fill out in a way that didn't look laughable when compared to Dean. But Dean gripped his waist hard when he tried to pull away, shushing his protests and flipping them over so that he was straddling Castiel's hips and smoothing in hands over the pale expanse of his chest.

"You gave me a back rub," Dean said smirking at him roughisly before kneading his thumbs into Cas's shoulders just above his collar bones. "Let me return the favor."

"Can't really rub my back if I'm laying on it," Castiel croaked out, feeling like he should cover himself up and like the other man had to be kidding him in some way because no one wanted him, no one ever even looked at him twice.

"I'm sure I'll figure something out," Dean replied, leaning down and putting his mouth right on that spot that he had almost touched him when they had been watching the movie in the psych ward—

When did that happened? That's not how that happened? Why was he on meds? Was he sick? Is that why he had been in a psych ward or a hospital? Why did it feel like there was a gaping hole in his chest when he thought about his mom? Why the fuck was he thinking about his mom when he had a fucking boner that was so hard it could cut glass?

"Dean?" Castiel gasped, instinctively arching his back up into the other man's lips and then groaning when he felt Dean's large, broad hand palming him through the straining denim of his jeans. "God, I don't understand..."

"It's fine Cas," Dean breathed against his neck, pressing his hips into Castiel's thigh and nipping at his skin when he felt the other man's arousal against his leg. "I've got you, you're fine. I see you, just open your eyes and realize that I see you."

He whimpered at that, feeling his cock twitch and throb in the other man's grasp as he came in sudden unexpected pulses in tight confines of his pants.

Castiel's eyes flew open, pressing his cheek into the pillow under his head and seeing stars for a second until his vision cleared and he was looking at the drawing of the plastic mug. With it's tea bag and scattered sugar and circular rings of spilled liquid that had been drawn with such magnificent precision that for just a second he could almost picture the person that had drawn it; the crinkles from smiling and concentration at the corners of their eyes and their full bottom lip captured in their top teeth. But there was no way that that's who it could be.

He drew in a shaky breath and looked down his body in the dim morning light of the hospital bedroom, thanking whatever saint would be least judgmental of him that Rufus was still snoring softly on the other side of the room. Cas couldn't remember the last time he had a wet dream that wasn't about Meg or some random that caught his eyes while he was riding his bike or walking around campus. Never had it been about anyone who he was friends with besides Balthazar's girlfriend, until now.

"Fuck," he cursed softly as the come started to cool inside his boxers, making the thin material stick to his legs as it seeped through to his pajama pants. He needed to get up and take a shower and try to get to a point where he didn't want to kill himself for having a sex dream about Dean, but right now it seemed impossible. "Goddamn fucking fuck."

* * *

Author Note: So confused, sexy dream? Yes? No? Meh? Go eat pizza at Roberta's if you're ever in NYC, I do totally have a suh-weet wizard shirt from there.

Also for Anthenasisters, the sad a boring story of how I manage to write so much in one short Earth week: Over the summer I moved, quit my job and dropped out of school and moved to a city where I literally know ONE person. So once upon a time I just read fanfiction (because in the spring I had two major surgeries and needed to kill time and that's how all of this started) and then I lost my social life somewhere in the 200 miles or so that I moved and now I write fanfiction. Lots of fanfiction. That's my secret, all of my friends live on the internet and I work in a coffee shop, I'm not a superhero as much as I wish I was sometimes. : /


	9. Chapter 9

_Okay, _Castiel thought, heading towards the cafeteria after lingering long enough that Ash came looking for him on Charlie's instructions. _It doesn't have to be awkward, not unless you make it awkward. You have dreams about Meg all of the time and remember that one time when you had a dream about your eighth grade biology teacher? He was 60 and moonlighted as a children's clown on the weekends. This is just as weird as that. _

Or at least that was what he told himself in the shower and when he was changing clothes, trying to act like he didn't care about wearing the horrible, ill-fitting clothes that Gabriel had brought for him because he wasn't trying to impress anyone. He wasn't worried about impressing Dean because Dean was his friend and Cas was straight and he didn't fucking care what the other man thought he looked like, alright!?

But even though he kept glaring at the too-short cuffs on the sweatpants that he had settled on wearing and wishing he and his brother shared any fucking genes at all so that maybe they would be closer to the same height and even though he bit his nails down until the copper taste of his bleeding cuticles filled his mouth giving him something else to focus on besides how thirsty he was he still didn't want to go to the cafeteria to face Dean because he was pretty sure he would blush so hard his ears would burn off. Charlie still made Ash come and find him anyway; Cas just prayed that he would melt into a puddle and die before he said something stupid and embarrassing.

Fate must have been on his side though because when he got to the cafeteria the only people sitting at the table were Charlie and Becky. There was a tray at Dean's seat, holding a half eaten breakfast burrito and a cup of fruit; Castiel noticed that the other man's tea was already sitting in front of the empty seat to the left of his tray in the spot where he had sat next to Dean during lunch and dinner the day before. He smiled in spite of himself and immediately started freaking out because he shouldn't care that Dean had thought of him even though he wasn't there. He didn't care.

Cas nearly jumped out of his skin when a frazzled looking blonde woman with dark circles under her eyes clattered down a tray in front of him, smiling tightly at him before glancing around the rest of the table with a dismissive sneer and rushing off to talk to Jo who had just appeared in the doorway holding a cup of coffee. He sighed down at his own breakfast burrito, kicking himself for forgetting to fill out the form that Ellen had given him and trying to console himself by thinking that maybe at least he could stomach a hamburger at lunch today even though throwing up the grilled cheese had kind of put him off of it when he thought in terms of dinner.

But that was a long ways off, light years away and right now he had enough salsa packets to make him find anything appetizing. So he carefully put his coffee on Dean's tray, finally glancing up to make sure that he wasn't receiving any weird looks from the other people seated at the table with him and noticing for the first time that Charlie was just poking at her pancakes with a teary eyed expression on her face while Becky sat right beside her, usurping Ash's seat so that she could pat the other girl comfortingly on the back.

"Did I miss something?" He asked the two girls, looking at Ash who just shook his head and looked as confused as Castiel felt.

"Just some 'good news' from Dr. Mosely," Charlie muttered, rolling her eyes as she used air quotes to make sure her sarcasm came across.

"So we're sad why?" Castiel asked, because somebody had to and it's not like he was going to make it through the day without saying something dumb eventually so he might as well start early.

"Because I don't want to leave," the other girl snapped, slouching down in her seat and crossing her arms over her chest.

He watched as she sniffled miserably into the sleeves of her hoodie, letting her hair fall forward like a curtain to cover her face so that no one would see her crying even though they all could hear it and to Cas it sounded just like how Anna had hiccupped and whimpered her way through their mom's funeral while he sat dry-eyed and detached next to the rest of his family and tried to feel anything at all as he watched the rain fall on the pile of dirt from her grave that the cemetery had tried to tastefully disguise with a tarp. Why this twisted his heart even though his sister's crying hadn't probably proved just how fucked up he really was, but Cas couldn't help feeling bad for the other girl even though he really didn't understand why she was sad about leaving when that's all he wanted to do.

"And so help me boy, if you sneak off this floor one more time I will snatch that stupid grin right off of your face, Dean Winchester!"

Castiel resolutely told himself not to look towards the doorway, not even when he saw Dean trailing in behind an African American woman with a determined expression on her face out of the corner of his eye. But the other man clapped him on the shoulder before dropping heavily into the seat beside him, widening his green eyes and puffing his cheeks out with a sigh. Cas couldn't stop himself from leaning into the touch just a little bit before snapping back to sitting up straight, forcing his spine to pay attention to what his brain was telling it even though it felt like it was full of magnets that were pulling him towards Dean.

"You must be Castiel Shurley," the woman said, taking up a spot behind Charlie and smoothing a hand over the other girl's red head with a sad, resigned smile on her face before she turned the full force of her piercing brown eyes on him. "You're up next, sugar. Now that I'm done dealing with R.P. over here we can get properly acquainted. Come with me honey."

"Can you tell Garth that you started the Cuckoo's Nest jokes at least!?" Dean asked, throwing his hand up in dramatic frustration.

Castiel saw the exact moment that the other man noticed how sad Charlie looked because Dean's face fell and his own fingers twitched with the urge to smooth the worry lines off of his face, but he picked up what was left of his burrito and rushed after the older woman instead, depositing his tray that he had only eaten about a third of onto the cart by the door before he followed her down the hall and to one of the unmarked doors that were near the nurse's station.

Part of him was relieved to have an excuse to avoid being around the other man and he knew that was the cowardly part of him, but another part rationalized his running away from Dean because it's not like he could get out of here without talking to a therapist eventually. And when he followed the older woman into her comfortable, homey looking office the first thing he saw was his messenger bag sitting on top of her desk, it made his heart leap up into his throat and his palms start sweating as he fought to force down the last dry bite of breakfast burrito that he had shoved into his mouth. Finally, Cas could get back to his homework and try to forget about all of the shit that had gotten him here to begin with.

"Have a seat, Castiel." The woman said, gesturing to a couple of plush armchairs that were situated around the small space, interspersed with low tables that had boxes of Kleenex or dishes of candy on them before she wandered around behind her desk and struggled to pull a file folder out from under his messenger bag that he knew was fairly heavy. "I'm Dr. Missouri Mosely. Sorry I couldn't meet you yesterday, we don't get a lot of admissions on the weekends not unless it's an emergency which seeing from your file..."

Castiel picked a chair that was a faded hunter green and settled warily into it, waiting for the other woman to finish her thought after she was done flipping through his file. He looked around the room, smiling at the potted plants and small bonsai tree that were taking up the entirety of the room's one windowsill and noticing that the doctor had a lot of framed pictures and drawings on her walls, making her diplomas and credentials seem secondary to the happy expressions of the people in the pictures and the scrawled messages of thanks that were on most of the artwork.

"Huh, voluntary commitment. Don't see a lot of those these days," the doctor commented, settling down into her office chair and flipping though the few papers that were in his file. "Most people who are stable enough to realize that they need some psychiatric help end up in a private hospital, especially if they have a family or a support system in place who can see that they're struggling. Now, I can see that you put a Gabriel Shurley as your emergency contact?"

Castiel nodded, licking his lips nervously because he could sense it coming; that moment when all of the pieces fell into place and Dr. Mosely realized that Shurley wasn't the world's most common name. It happened a lot more at school with the other accounting and business majors who all knew who his brother the legend, Michael Shurley, was. His dad had a pen name so that happened less often, but there had been a couple of hardcore fans who knew that Carver Edlund was really Chuck Shurley when he was at home. And every single damn one of the stay-at-home moms turned college students loved Gabriel and his quirky sense of humor on his cooking show. He knew it was really just a matter of time before Anna was a famous ballerina or something and Cas finally set up his camp to live in the shadows of the rest of his family for good.

"And he is..." the doctor continued, gesturing with her hand that he could feel free to jump in at any time now.

"My brother," Castiel said plainly, holding his breath and waiting for the other shoe to drop just like it always did. Just like it had with Balthazar about four months after they started living together in the dorms at NYU and just like it did anytime he tried to talk to anyone about anything that didn't revolve around one of the other members of his family.

"Have you talked to him since you got here?" Dr. Mosely asked conversationally, frowning down at a portion of the paperwork that he had filled out in the emergency room.

"He brought me some clothes and stuff yesterday," he replied, clearing his throat when his voice came out hoarser sounding than usual and fuck he really needed a glass of water or something because he couldn't stop staring at his backpack and thinking about how much he needed the research and spirals inside. "Gabe said he would come back today to bring me the books I asked for."

"Yea, I saw that you were a student." The woman said, resolutely ignoring his backpack and looking up at him as she settled her hands on top of her desk with a knowing smile on her face. "Why don't you tell me why you think you're here, Castiel."

"Well, um...I want to kill myself and I just...need to get my life together," He was struggling with this question again, just like he had in the emergency room because he felt like there were so many reasons why he should do it and not a lot that was keeping him from it except for him not wanting to put his family through losing another one of their makeshift clan; they had barely survived losing his mom.

"What does your family think about you being here?"

"The only one who knows is Gabriel," he replied quickly, feeling his stomach turn at the thought of Michael finding out that he was here. His oldest brother just had his life so together and figured out, that's why Castiel was trying to follow in his footsteps with school and his internships even though he was failing miserably at that too, just like he did everything else. "I'd really rather not tell anyone else that I'm here if I don't have to."

"And why is that?" the other woman asked, turning around in her seat to rummage around with something he couldn't see before spinning back and offering him a bottle of water, twisting the cap off of her own before taking a dainty sip.

"It's a bit...um...embarassing," he muttered, accepting the bottle gratefully and downing half of it in the first go. Castiel didn't know how she had known that it was what he needed, but feeling the cool plastic bottle against his overheated skin helped give him something to focus on besides how his stomach was churning uncomfortably.

"Y'know, that's what's wrong with this whole system," Dr. Mosely said shaking her head a little as she leaned back in her seat. "And it's a right damn shame. People are raised to think that having a mental illness is something to be embarrassed about, like it means that you're weaker or wrong in some way for having a chemical imbalance. That's what it is after all, it's a medical condition. Just like diabetes. If you had diabetes would you be embarrassed, Castiel? If you had to take insulin or check your blood sugar before eating dessert out at a restaurant with your friends would they make fun of you for being responsible and taking a proactive stance on your health?"

"No," he said softly, feeling guilty for being embarrassed about something that lots of people struggled with. Who was he to think he was better than anyone else out on the ward right now? Why did he think he think he was above getting depression or diabetes or diphtheria?

"And that's why you're here," The doctor said triumphantly, smiling at him and picking up a pen off of her desk. "Because you want to be proactive about your health. Some subconscious part of you isn't ready to give up yet and that's what made you come to my emergency room instead of jumping off of a building."

"It was the Brooklyn Bridge," he corrected softly, earning a strange smile from the other woman as she made a note in his file. "How did you know that?"

"Call it intuition," Dr. Mosely replied. "I'm pretty good at being able to read people, I come back every weekend expecting to hear that Dean's run off to play doctor somewhere again and that boy is still standing despite how much I want to strangle him sometimes. Imagine my surprise when I find out he's talked one of my lifers into trailing after him for once. I thought that Charlie had lost her damn mind, pardon my expression."

Castiel smirked at the other woman's plain spokenness, it was refreshing to not have a doctor talking down to him for once. His mother's doctors had made him and his siblings feel like misbehaving children when they asked extraneous questions about her health whenever they were taking turns picking her up from chemo and making sure she made it home. And going to his own doctor while she was sick and his troubles with insomnia had started had just made him hate pretty much everyone with an M.D. at the end of their name.

"It's good to make friends, Castiel." The doctor continued, her tone suddenly turning serious as she pursued her lips at him and narrowed her eyes. "But remember that you're here to work on yourself first and that everything else comes second."

He nodded quickly, swallowing hard when he thought of Dean and his dream; shifting uncomfortably in the armchair under the other woman's gaze. "I...uh...I get that, but you said that you knew I'm a student, right?"

"That's right."

"Well, its spring break this week, but I still have some papers and homework to finish. It's not stuff that I can put off just because I'm here—"

"The only homework that you will be doing is finding out more of your family history for me," The doctor said cutting him off and putting up a hand palm facing out to silence him. She gestured at his E.R. paperwork, "You're in your twenties and you still weren't able to list any medical history for either side of your family, that worries me on more than just a professional level, Castiel."

"I'm adopted," he explained, causing the other woman's eyes to widen in surprise for just a second and he couldn't help but smile at that because even with all of her intuition she still hadn't guessed that about him; though honestly not a lot of people could. "The only family history I know is for people who I don't share any genes with. My grandfather has high blood pressure, my aunt Carol has Crohn's, and my mom has—had gastric cancer. Besides that I'm pretty much in the dark about any medical conditions that I might end up with."

"That must be pretty scary," the doctor stated.

Castiel just shrugged in response because before his mom got sick he had never really thought about it, not even when he was watching The Notebook with Meg and listening to the other girl's stories about how her great aunt had dementia and how horrible it was to have to watch her forget everything about her life little by little. The conversation had started with him venting about how worried he was about his mom not eating and he still couldn't remember when it had gotten away from him like most of his conversations with his roommate's girlfriend did.

"Well speaking doctor to patient, its terrifying trust me," Dr. Mosely said simply, pulling out a yellow legal pad and writing out a short list before ripping the page off and sliding it across the desk towards him. "You may not want your family to know that you're here, but I need you to fill in a couple of gaps for me."

"Why?" Castiel asked frustrated because he didn't want to worry his dad with all of this when the older man was still acting weird over a year after his mom dying. "I'm not here because I have high blood pressure or anything, I'm depressed. Just prescribe me some Zoloft or something and I can do your therapy or whatever while also doing my school work."

"Studies show that some mental illnesses may run in families, but y'know what? I'll make you a deal, something to make it worth your while to actually get something out of this place instead of just faking getting better so that you don't miss finals or whatever else you are obsessing about."

"I'm not obsessed," Castiel snapped, louder than he had intended to and immediately afterwards he felt like he was going to throw up, slapping a hand over his mouth and glancing around for a trash can in case his body gave up the ghost and he lost his breakfast burrito. But he was able to swallow the bile back down, grimacing at the taste and angrily wiping at the tears that had sprung up his in eyes from the effort of trying to not vomit.

He took a steadily breath and looked apologetically at the other woman, "I'm sorry. But this is my future; I know that I can't leave until I'm better. I asked to be here so I know that I'm not exactly being my best right now, but I also can't just ignore my responsibilities. I'm trying to be happy and it's not going to happen if I don't finish school."

"I was going to say," the doctor began slowly, reaching for his bag and dragging it across the desk towards herself, pulling papers and pens with it that were trapped under the heavy grey fabric of the bag. "That you can pick one thing out of this bag to take with you to work on. Every time I feel like you're making genuine progress you can have something else. Whatever you want to do with what you pick is up to you, but if I find out that you're skipping groups or meals to work on homework it all gets locked back up in this office and you don't get to touch it until you leave. And no getting your brother to bring in more school stuff for you, what's in this bag is what you have to work with, nothing else."

"But that's not fair," He said, standing up quickly and watching as the other woman opened the zipper of his bag and held it open so that he could look into it and decide what he wanted to take with him for who knows how long until he was able to earn back another one of his belongings. "One thing is not going to be enough to help me with anything."

"Well, let's just say that this is your first epiphany," the therapist replied smugly, watching him closely as he ran his fingertips over the spines of the books and notebooks that were in the bag. "Life is not fair, for anyone. And you learn to make the best of what is given to you, to preserve despite the odds, and to recognize what is really important."

_That's a shit lesson._ He thought, pausing over a GRE study guide that was taking up a significant portion of the bag, nestled right next to a copy of his dad's latest book that he had been meaning to read since it had come out almost two years ago. Carver Edlund had gone into hiding while Chuck Shurley was busy taking care of his dying wife and learning how to be alone again for the first time in almost thirty years. Anna had told Castiel the last time he talked to her that their dad had finally gone into his office again, but just to sleep on the couch in there because his bed was too big without their mom and not even looking at his typewriter as he shuffled around the small room.

"Don't cuss at me boy," Dr. Mosely warned, smirking at Castiel when he started protesting that he hadn't before stopping when he realized that he had been doing it in his head and grabbing the GRE study guide before snatching the yellow piece of paper from the other woman and sliding it into the book, sitting down with it weighing heavily in his lap. "Okay, so you have your homework. I expect for you to know that stuff for me the next time we talk one on one."

"Which will be?" Castiel said sullenly, picking at the torn corner of the study manual and second-guessing his decision to pick it in the first place.

"Did the nurse's give you a therapy schedule?"

He nodded, feeling self-hating tears prick at the back of his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose in an effort to stem them; Castiel didn't know why he felt like crying all of a sudden.

"Well, what stood out to you? Is there anything that you know that you need to do? Alcoholic's Anonymous?"

"No," he said softly trying to remember the six or seven different groups that he had seen on the paper. "Um...anger management maybe?"

"Do you have a lot of anger, Castiel?" the other woman asked, receiving a noncommittal shrug in return. The boy didn't know what the hell he needed. "Well how about this, you come to one of the group therapies; there is one after breakfast and one after lunch and then spend the rest of the day today sitting in on any other one's that stick out for you. You and I can talk again in the morning and decide on which ones will work out best."

"So I'll have to talk to my dad today?" Castiel said resignedly, his voice going up at the end of the sentence like it was a question even though he had known that he would have to at some point in this whole fucking messed up situation. If not Gabriel was bound to give him away to the older man sooner or later.

"I think you know the answer to that," the doctor replied, standing up and stowing his bag back behind her desk before straightening the long, loose fitting sweater she was wearing. "Now come on sugar, go put your book away and come to group. If I know my Winchesters then I'm sure Dean saved you a seat."

He nodded again and let the other woman put an arm around his shoulders, already feeling tired and beaten down by the day despite it only having just started. Castiel took another look around the office as he moved towards the door, trying to draw strength from the potted plants (even though part of him was wondering if Balthazar or Meg were watering the ones in the apartment, they probably weren't) and the cheery pictures and the various drawings hanging up on the walls like trophies of a life lived successfully.

Missouri flipped off the light on their way out of the office and it was then that he noticed another drawing, one that was an intricate portrait of the doctor sitting at her desk with her fingers steepled under her chin and a wry smile on her face. It was done in sketched pencil and shaded with soft charcoal strokes that the framed the best features of the other woman in the most flattering way he had ever seen. The paper behind the glass was yellowed with age and the edges of the drawing looked weirdly blackened where they peaked around the wooden frame. But that wasn't the main thing that made it catch his attention; it was that it was done in the same style as his picture.

And it was signed.

* * *

Author Note: Found out today that I have to actually go eat turkey somewhere tomorrow so pre-warning for those of you that read BtR its probs gonna be late. Boo. But here's an update for this, so yay! Silver linings!


	10. Chapter 10

Group was a disaster, through honestly it didn't start off that way.

It started with Castiel absentmindedly trailing in behind Missouri and taking the only empty seat left in the common room, where all of the couches and chairs had been pushed into a lopsided circle, that happened to be right next to Dean who was sitting on the couch with Charlie in between him and Becky in one of those weird folding dorm chairs that were like really uncomfortable indoors hammocks. The other man was rubbing at his flannel covered arms with an agitated expression on his face and Charlie was red-eyed but no longer crying, so at least that was an improvement.

Seeing Dean caused all kinds of weird emotions in Castiel, but he settled on concern because Dean looked really upset and he hadn't seen the other man biting his lip that hard before or almost on the verge of crying, not even when he had snapped at him and caused him to leave the room. And really, concern was easier for him to deal with. It was a normal feeling to have about another man, one that didn't lead to crushes or wet dreams or more complicated ones that he didn't even fully understand. Cas didn't understand because the biggest emotion he felt when he saw Dean was really disappointment.

Disappointment laced with relief because the familiar looking drawing of Dr. Mosely in her office wasn't signed by Dean, in fact it was a stretch to call the loopy, scrawled initials at the bottom of the drawing a signature at all. He had just been so excited to have a clue about who his secret admirer was that he had started rushing towards the day area and Charlie so he could tell her about it before the sudden realization that it was a 'M' and not a 'D' doodled in front of the 'W' that stood for the artists' last name had completely knocked the wind out of his sails and brought him to a standstill in the middle of the hallway.

He should have been happy, why wasn't he happy? This meant that his weird dream about Dean was caused by that stupid grilled cheese sandwich or maybe that off brand tea or even possibly the overheard conversation between Charlie and the other man that had put the other patient at the forefront of his thoughts right before he fell asleep. It wasn't caused by the fact that every time Dean saw him, the other man smiled like he was genuinely happy to see him or by the way the other patient seemed to actually give a shit about him and he didn't even know him.

That wasn't enough to make a friendship into something more or for Castiel to completely change everything everyone knew about him, everything he knew about himself over a silly dream. He didn't even know the first thing about Dean, so why couldn't he feel anything but empty when he took the seat next to the other man and studied his rugged face with concern, a concern that was friendly and nothing more.

"Good morning, everybody." Missouri said brightly, taking a seat in a sturdy looking rocking chair that had been pulled over from its place near the window and placed at the top of the circle. "How was everyone's breakfast?"

Beside Castiel, Dean scoffed, rolling his eyes and muttering something that sounded exceptionally profane under his breath.

"Please, just drop it Dean." Charlie whispered on his other side and Castiel looked across the agitated man to see that the redhead had a stricken expression on her face. "It's not going to change anything."

"No, Charlene." Missouri corrected gently, smiling warmly at the other girl before nodding curtly in Dean's direction. "Group is a safe place for everyone, Dean is entitled to his own opinions and can voice them here without hurting anybody's feelings. Right everybody?"

There was a murmuring assent from around the group which included Ash as well as Crowley and Dick who were sitting next to each other and wearing matching looks of amusement over Dean's obvious distress. The other man had narrowed his eyes at Missouri, frowning disapprovingly at her as he continued to rub agitatedly at his arms, scratching over the fabric at his forearms and wrists like he had the chicken pox and couldn't help unconsciously doing it when he was upset.

"So Dean," the therapist said tightly, glancing behind them all to Garth who was lingering in the doorway and shaking her head slightly. "How is your morning going?"

"Well, Missouri. I'm sorry, doctor," Dean began sarcastically, letting out a rough sigh and unbuttoning the cuffs of his flannel over shirt, reaching up underneath the fabric to scratch at his skin as he spoke. "I said I think its complete bullshit that you guys are kicking Charlie out. Who are you to play god with people's lives like that? Don't you think she's been through enough?"

"Charlie's leaving?" The brunette woman in the sunglasses asked, her voice sounding different than Castiel had expected it too since so far all he had heard was her muttering to herself as she stared out the window of the common room. "I don't know why I didn't see that coming."

"I'm not leaving," Charlie interrupted, putting a comforting arm around Dean's shoulders. "Nothing is set is stone, it just...might happen."

"You'll leave eventually though," Crowley murmured, nudging Dick in the side and nodding towards where Dean was still scratching at his arms. "Everyone always leaves and only the very special ones get to come back, like you Dean."

"Or Alastair," Dick added, grinning widely when Dean's head shot in his direction. "I hear that the third time 'round is the charm, right Winchester?"

"That's enough," Missouri redirected when Dean started to get up from the couch, ignoring how Charlie was clutching at the back of his shirt. "We aren't talking about that, we're talking about how Dean's morning is going."

"She didn't eat breakfast," Becky said weakly, twisting her hands in her lap and resolutely not looking at Crowley who had started frowning at her. "Charlie, she didn't eat."

"Is that true, Charlie?" the therapist asked, leaning forward in her seat as her features melted into motherly concern. "Because that isn't how I expected you to take our conversation."

"Thanks, Becks." Charlie muttered under her breath, loud enough that Castiel could hear her, but he didn't think that the doctor could. "I'm on my period too, want to tell her that."

"Gross," Castiel said, earning a huffing laugh from Dean beside him who was still rubbing at his wrists, but had also started softly scratching at his denim covered thighs too, his short nails sounding raspy loud against the texture of the fabric.

Green eyes locked onto his own and he forced a smile onto his face, one that he didn't really feel because the part of his mind that he couldn't think about was still sad that Dean hadn't been the one to do that drawing, but another part of him knew that he needed to be strong for his new friend right now. That is the part that made him smile, he had never been the strong one for someone before, never been needed because there was always someone better around to help Meg or his family deal with their problems. But he could try to be strong for Dean, even if he couldn't even be strong for himself.

"I just got all worried about what I was going to wear to the interview," Charlie admitted, easing her grip on the back of Dean's shirt slightly as she talked. "I mean I have like no nice clothes, everything is donated stuff and I don't want them thinking I'm like...a bum or something."

"I'm confused," Crowley said, frowning as he crossed his legs and propped his chin up on his hand. "Isn't that what you are? It never helps anything to lie on your resume, dear. Just go in there in what you came in here in. What was it again, Dick?"

"I believe it was an assortment of dirty, tattered clothing and shoes made out of plastic bags, but correct me if I'm wrong Charlie."

"Who the fuck do you think you are?" Dean shouted suddenly, breaking the grip that Charlie had on his shirt and jumping to his feet so that he could start across the room towards the spiteful, grinning duo of Crowley and Dick who hadn't even flinched over Dean's reaction to their hurtful comments about the redhead. "I should kick your fucking asses you self-righteous pricks."

"I'm sure that's not the only thing you'd like to do to our asses," Dick sneered, high fiving Crowley when the other man put his hand up beside him

Castiel watched wide eyed as Garth rushed in and put himself between Dean and the other two men, reaching out to put a hand on his shoulder before stopping himself when Dean flinched away from his outstretched hand.

"Don't fucking touch me," Dean hissed, glaring over the lanky orderly's shoulder one more time before he pushed up the sleeves of his shirt and sat back down heavily beside Charlie and buried his face in his hands. "I wasn't going to fucking do anything; they shouldn't talk about stuff they don't know anything about. Fucking assholes."

"I have some clothes you can borrow," Castiel offered softly, not even realizing he was speaking because he was too busy staring at Dean's arms, which were red and irritated looking from his scratching over the jagged, misshapen scars that were covering the inside part of his forearm starting at the thick blue veins on his wrists and running down until they disappeared under the bunched up sleeves of his over shirt at his elbows.

The other man stiffened beside him, but didn't look up and Cas was able to tear his eyes off of Dean's wrists long enough to meet Charlie's red-rimmed green eyes that were shining with worry for the man sitting between them.

"I mean, they aren't mine of course," he managed to continue, glancing back at Dean one last time before dropping his eyes to his hands that had fisted themselves into the fabric of Gabriel's sweatpants that he was wearing at some point during the entire unexpected confrontation. "But you're about the same size as my sister and she's pretty girly. I bet she would have like a dress or something you could borrow for your interview."

"That's really nice, Cas." Charlie said softly, reaching across Dean's back to touch him on the shoulder before dropping her hand down onto the other man's back and rubbing soothingly between his shoulder blades. "I'd really appreciate that. Isn't that nice, Dean?"

The other man nodded into his hands and glanced up at Castiel before sitting up straight and tugging his sleeves back down his arms, buttoning the flapping cuffs of his flannel shirt in a businesslike way before clearing his throat and looking resolutely at Missouri who was watching Dean with an amused smile on her face.

"What's so damn funny, Missouri?" Dean asked, his voice sounding rough with unspent emotion.

"Nothing," She said shaking her head and winking at Castiel before going back to asking everyone else about their morning and talking about the importance of healthy relationships for recovery.

Dean was up and out of the room as soon as group ended, walking away quickly down the hall and ignoring Charlie's calls for him to stop when the redhead chased him as far as the door to the common room. Castiel followed her, pulling his glasses off and cleaning them as he watched the other man's plaid back receding down the hallway in the narrow, fuzzy tunnel that was his near-sightedness made everything into when he didn't have his glasses on.

"God," Charlie sighed, kicking the doorframe with the toe of her worn sneaker. "I haven't seen him freak out like that in a while."

"So he's not like that normally, right?" Castiel asked, crossing his arms over his chest and willing away the image of the jagged scars on Dean's arms that he hadn't been able to shake for the entire rest of the group therapy. "Yesterday he seemed so mellow."

"I mean, Dean's always been pretty protective of his friends and stuff, but he's been able to keep his temper in check pretty well this time around or at least that's what I've been told." Charlie said with a shrug, glancing over at him and sniffling softly. "I'm sorry you had to see him like that."

"Everyone is here for a reason, right?" Cas replied brushing off the apology because if he had an ounce of courage at all he probably would've stood up to Dick and Crowley too, but it had taken everything he had not to start hyperventilating himself during group so he considered the fact that he was standing a victory in and of itself. "Hey, um...what's the next group or whatever? I'm supposed to sit in on some stuff today, figure out what I might need to work on."

"All the groups don't meet every day," Charlie said starting in a slow meandering walk down the hallway towards the rec room. "Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays are Alcoholics Anonymous, Stress Management, and then LGBTQ is right before dinner."

"Oh, well..." Castiel replied, clearing his throat uncomfortably and deciding that at least he would have more time on those three days to work on school work because he was pretty sure he only needed one out of those groups anyway. "Stress management might work out for me, but what about anger management? I know I saw that on the schedule."

"That's on Tuesdays and Thursdays, along with abuse survivors and then either Andy or Lisa come by to do art or music therapy because those days are like really heavy for some people here. They end up being a way for people to try to decompress after those sessions."

"That makes sense," Castiel said, nodding his head and pausing outside the door to his room for a second, debating about whether or not he should grab his study guide and try to cram some test prep in before he got distracted by therapy he still wasn't sure he really needed. "Do you mind if I just follow you around to whatever you go to today? I mean, if it's not a big deal or anything. I don't want to crowd you or get on your nerves or –"

"It's fine, Cas." Charlie said, smiling warmly at him before gesturing to his room with a jut of her chin. "I'm just gonna go check on Dean, make sure he's okay. I'll meet you in the rec room in like, five minutes maybe?"

"Uh, yea." Castiel replied, running his hand over the back of his neck and sighing in resignation before taking a step towards the heavy GRE study guide that he had tossed down onto his bed before catching back up with Missouri at the nurse's station. He stopped though, when a sudden fear flashed through his mind, one that he had never had to be worried about before and it was enough to make him gasp in panic when it struck him. "Charlie? Dean's not...I mean he's not going to...do...anything, right?"

"I don't see how he could," Charlie muttered with a shrug, frowning even as she said it and taking a step closer down the hall towards hers and Dean's room. "I mean, he'd have to be pretty fucking determined and stupid, but Dean's always been those things in spades so um...I'll be right back."

"Should I be worried?" Cas called after her, turning to follow her fast-paced stride down the hallway as Charlie rushed past the rec room and showers, skidding around the corner and out of his sight. "Charlie!"

"You stupid, selfish fucking dickbag!" Charlie was saying when he caught up to her, cluchting at his heart like it was about to burst out of his chest because all he could think about were the pale, jagged scars lacing across the tanned skin of Dean's arms and it was freaking him the fuck out.

"Fuck stop, Charlie!" Dean yelled, ducking a pillow that that the other girl was trying to pummel him with. "I'm not doing anything, just coping! I'm using my fucking coping skills, Jesus!"

"You're not allowed to cope without telling me that you're coping!" Charlie exclaimed, jumping onto the narrow bed with the other man and holding the pillow in her hands over his head threateningly. "You scared the shit out of me and Cas was worried."

"He was worried about me?" Dean asked sounding slightly dumbstruck and lowering his arms long enough to give Charlie the perfect opportunity to hit him in the face one last time before climbing off of him and ambling over to Castiel with a relieved smile on her face.

"We both were, weren't we Cas?" Charlie said, nudging him in the side where he was standing awkwardly in their doorway, keeping an eye out down the hallway lest the two roommates' yelling brought Garth or Jo running to check on them. "Now come hang out with us and watch me kick Ash's butt at Bioshock. You can bring your coping skill with you, bang out that project that Lisa gave you no problem."

Dean sat up quickly, straightening his shirt and running a hand through his hair after shoving something under the pillow that he had been laying on. He glanced at Castiel and licked his lips nervously before shaking his head quickly.

"No, it's fine." Dean muttered, standing up and moving over to meet them in the doorway. "I didn't mean to make you guys worry or anything. I just needed a second to myself after letting Dick and Crowley get to me, I'll uh...watch you play video games or something."

"You can use my cards," Charlie offered, spinning off back down the hallway and leaving Dean and Castiel following more slowly behind her.

"I'm uh...happy you didn't do anything," Castiel murmured, wincing when it came out sounding more concerned than a friend should. He kept his eyes on the ground in front of him because if he looked at Dean he was pretty sure he would start blushing, that embarrassment over his dream had finally shown up, possibly triggered by knowing now exactly how the other man would look sprawled out in a bed.

"Thanks," Dean said softly, catching the swinging door that led into the rec room and holding in open for Cas, gesturing that he should go ahead of him and into the room. "I'm sorry that you had to see me like that, I um...I'm just not very good with um...surprises. So, yea."

"It probably doesn't help that Dick and Crowley are assholes," Ash drawled where he was sitting cross legged on the floor, already leaning into the controller in his hands like it would help his character move around the game faster.

Charlie nodded earnestly, taking the seat beside Ash on the floor and snatching the other controller out of his lap. "Total jerks."

Dean plopped down on the loveseat that was situated behind the coffee table that Charlie and Ash were leaning on with a heavy sigh and smiled winningly at Cas when he hesitated before perching himself on the edge of the coffee table instead of sitting next to the other man. It was just too close and there would probably be touching and he didn't think that he could handle that right now, especially after already worrying unnecessarily like a silly, stupid girl getting bent out of shape seeing her boyfriend tackled in football practice or something. Anna could talk for hours about boys she went to school with twisting their ankles from plie-ing the wrong way or whatever, boys that she had crushes on.

He cleared his throat and leaned down next to Charlie, whispering which was also stupid because if Dean wasn't his secret admirer, then what did he have to be embarrassed about?

"I think I might be able to figure out who sent me that drawing."

"Oh, really?" Charlie said, smiling smugly and punching hard at the buttons on the controller she was holding and biting her lip in concentration. "I guess somebody finally grew a pair and told you then, well invite me—"

"Told him what?" Dean asked suddenly, leaning forward and tugging on the end of Charlie's hair, shooting a nervously look at Castiel and he couldn't help himself from looking down at Dean's fabric covered forearms again before dropping his eyes guiltily to his lap.

"You mean? Oh. OH! Right I guess you don't know, Dean." Charlie covered quickly, leaning forward out of the larger man's reach and pulling her hair over her shoulder. "Well, it's nothing never mind."

"Secrets don't make friends," Dean cajoled, winking at Cas when he happened to look up at the green-eyed man before he plopped back down on the couch with a pouting frown. "You gonna let me in on your secret, Cas?"

"I've got to go," Castiel muttered, jumping to his feet and heading out of the room because the teasing tone in the other man's voice reminded him too much of how dream Dean had talked to him and it was scary how...comfortable it felt, familiar. "Y'know, homework stuff. My book is in my room, I'm going to go get it."

Rufus wasn't in bed when he got back, but he could hear the sink in the ensuite bathroom running so he knew that the other man hadn't actually left the room. Cas was so embarrassed that he didn't know if he wanted to cry or curse or just drown himself in the closest standing body of water, even if that meant the toilet because Dean did not need to know that he was getting all hormonal over a stupid drawing even if it was the first thing he had gotten from someone that didn't come with strings or ulterior motives attached to it.

But he wasn't at home and this wasn't his room where he could shut himself away and play loud music so no one would hear him crying or talking to himself like freaking Gollum huddled over his homework like it was fucking Sauron's precious damn ring. He paced the tiled floor of his small, shared room until Rufus opening the bathroom door made him whirl around, snatching the drawing off of his bedside table and hiding it behind his back because he thought that it was Dean coming to check on him again, to make sure he wasn't puking his guts out like the mess he was, like he had the night before.

Thankfully it wasn't, but Rufus still gave him a weird look as he shuffled back to his bed and wrapped himself back up in his blankets mumbling something about "crazy ass white boys" that Castiel whole-heartedly agreed with. Once he was sure the other man was fully ensconced in his hospital issued bed linens, Castiel sat down on the edge of his bed, gnawing on a piece of loose skin that had started to peel off of his lips that were chapped from constantly biting and licking them anytime he was nervous, which was most of the time.

He carefully held his drawing in his lap, cradling it like it was something precious. Cas laughed ruefully when he thought about how he was probably just trading in one obsession for another, homework for the mystery of the secret artist, but then he glanced over at his study manual and decided that he could probably have both if he really put his mind to it. He folded his picture in half once, deciding that this would be the last time he did it before he carefully slid it to hold the spot that he had been keeping with an old receipt from the on-campus coffee shop and took one last deep breath before gathering his thoughts so he could head back towards the rec room resolved that he was going to stop letting things be weird between him and Dean.

It was all in his head anyway, no one talked to him like Dean talked to him, joking and easy and coy. No one...except Meg.

"You coming, Cas?" Charlie asked, rapping on his open door with her knuckles as she and Ash walked past, headed back towards the common room and presumably, stress management.

Castiel nodded and stood up, wrapping his arms around his book and carrying it with him like a security blanket even though he knew that it was going to look weird and Missouri was probably going to think that he was doing exactly what she had told him not to do already, picking homework over treatment. But he needed the sense of peace that the drawing gave him, the knowledge that someone had taken the time to make something that he would like so that he could face everyone again and his stupid, too short sweatpants didn't have pockets so its not like he could carry it there, this was really his only option.

He followed her to the closest couch, taking the seat on one of the outer edges so that he would only have to sit next to Charlie and feeling more than a little relieved when a unfamiliar Asian girl took the rocking chair that Missouri had been sitting in during group therapy with a clipboard clutched tightly in her hand as she smiled around the groups. Her eyes stopped on Castiel for a second before she smiled widely at Charlie and returned the little wave that the redhead gave her.

"Man, the things I would do..." Charlie muttered, nudging Castiel in the side and nodding at the Asian girl meaningfully.

Cas gave the other girl a confused look and shrugged his shoulders like he knew what she was talking about, but he really didn't. He hadn't seen the other girl around the ward during the day before, but that didn't mean she wasn't a patient or anything; is not like being in a hospital was exactly a social event so it was fully possible that she had kept herself in her room up until now and that's why it was the first time he was seeing her.

"Who is she?" He asked, running his thumb over the corner of his book so that the pages thrummed under his fingertips.

"Freaking interns man," Charlie replied under her breath, glancing over and noticing the dumbfounded look he was giving her. "Missouri really just does the group sessions and one on one stuff, the other therapies are divvied up to a couple of interns that she hand picks to lead each group. They're smart as hell, but man its torture when she picks a pretty one."

"Dude, Maggie is hot," Ash agreed, leaning over to whisper it over Charlie's head so that the intern wouldn't overhear them as she chewed on the end of the pen that she had pulled out from behind her ear.

"I guess," he said, glancing over at the therapist again before looking towards the hallway where Dean was leaning up against the nurse's station talking to Jo with an easy-going smile on his face. The other man was carrying something, a journal or a notepad that he picked up and used to salute the nurse with before ambling back off toward the other hallway.

"Hello, everyone." The Asian girl piped, pulling her legs up into the rocking chair with her so that she was sitting cross legged in the seat. "Welcome to stress management 101, where you will learn the art of zen and motorcycle maintenance."

Charlie laughed beside him, probably a little too hard for it to be entirely genuine, but it had finally sunk in for Cas exactly why she had fluffed up her hair when she saw the intern coming and why her eyes that had been teary and red-rimmed less than an hour ago were now shining happily as she appraised the other girl's pigtails and Radiohead t-shirt with an approving smile. That's why it wasn't a big deal for her to be roommates with Dean, his charm had no effect on her because he _really _wasn't her type.

"I see that we have a new face in the crowd, so I'll just start off this group by everyone going around and saying your name and go-to coping skill," the girl said, looking around the circle excitedly. "A coping skills is something you use to well, help you cope. Pretty obvious right, I like for everyone to name something healthy, a hobby or relaxation techniques that are not illegal, harmful to yourself or others, and let's keep it PG today, okay Ash?"

The other man scoffed, putting a hand to his chest like he was offended for a second before shrugging and nodding because he really did deserve that comment.

"I'll start us off," she continued. "My name is Maggie Zeddmore, LPC intern specializing in family therapy, nuclear, non and all the kinds in between. My coping skill is karate, black belt right here ladies and gents. Who's next?"

"Lilith," the blonde said, smirking eerily around the circle before she settled her gaze back on Maggie and recrossed her legs. "I like playing with animals."

"Oh, that's sweet," Maggie cooed, making a note on her clipboard. "Pet therapy is an interesting and experimental field; I could see if Dr. Mosely might let you guys have a day where we bring service animals in or something. Great idea, Lilith! Next?"

"Martin," The thin man who had told Castiel to be quiet when had first gotten on the ward the day before mumbled, arms crossed over his chest and snapping his head up from where he looked like he had been nodding off to sleep. "I like to meditate, I like the quiet."

"Good, good," Maggie encouraged, continuing around the group and adding in little pep talks and trivia for the people who appeared to be struggling.

Castiel listened to everyone else's coping skills and tried to figure out what his might be. He didn't really do much these days, besides homework and that couldn't really be considered the most stress-free activity that he engaged in since most of the time when he got caught up in a project he forgot to eat or sleep or shower. There were whole weekends when he didn't even leave his room until the sounds of Meg's girlish giggles brought him out of his cave to choke down some ginger ale or some tea and a couple of crackers.

"I'm Ash," the mulletted boy began, smirking mischievously at Castiel and Charlie. "I like to go hunting and –"

"Ash," Maggie interrupted, putting up her clipboard and covering her face with it, muffling her voice slightly as she continued. "I swear on all that's holy if you say something vulgar right now I will make sure you never play a video game ever again."

"Well shit," Ash cursed, crossing his arms over his chest. "Half of everything I do you think is vulgar, Mags. What the hell am I supposed to say?"

"Nothing that involves a slang word for vaginas or sex. Positive, a positive coping skills is all I'm asking for," the intern replied, peeking over her clipboard at the group earning a wistful sounding sigh from Charlie.

"Computers, I guess." Ash muttered. "I like to take them apart and put them back together again."

"Thank you! How about you Charlie, what's your coping skill?"

"I like to read," Charlie breathed, twisting her finger around a strand of her hair. "My favorite book is _The Hobbit_."

"Oh, I love that one too!" Maggie exclaimed, bouncing in her seat a little bit. "Small world. Alright, new guy you understand how the game is played now?"

Castiel nodded, catching his thumb on the page in his book that had the drawing tucked into it; opening it far enough so that he could catch a glimpse of the wispy steam that was streaming out of the two-dimensional mug. "I'm Castiel and I um...I like to read too. I study a lot, so I guess homework is sort of my coping skill."

"Hmmm," Maggie said, frowning and tilting her head at him. "I don't know, we might have to see if we can do better than that. How about you think on it? Dig deep and try to find something that really works for you when you're feeling down or stressed, works every time no matter where you are."

"Studying works," Castiel objected softly, nudging his glasses back up his nose and glancing up at the intern with his stomach twisting fitfully because he knew that nothing made him feel better, nothing much made him feel at all.

"You did those crosswords yesterday," Charlie offered helpfully.

"Nah," Maggie said knowingly. "Castiel will come up with something good. I think he has secret hidden depths that will shock and astound us all, don't ya?"

He shook his head, swallowing nervously because that was the second person to say he had secrets and yea he did, but that's why they were secrets. No one wanted to listen to his problems and he wasn't really too keen to share them with anyone, god all of this therapy shit was complete bullshit. Now he remembered why he hadn't wanted to see someone else after he and his family finished grief counseling, therapists were always telling him he was wrong or pushing for more than he was willing to give and he had too many other people telling him he wasn't good enough already, a professional saying the same thing wasn't going to make anything better.

"You'll figure it out," Maggie consoled. "That's what we're all here for, right? Life is all about figuring things out and rushing or forcing the lesson before you're ready to learn it just leads to stress. So that's what we're going to talk about today, guys. Patience and how a lack of it relates to stress."

Castiel zoned out again, repeating to himself that studying worked for him and that didn't make him a freak or anything, just driven. Driven like Michael and Gabriel who had it all figured out and that worked for him. It was working for him. Right?

* * *

Author Note: Hey all, if you've been following the weather, Texas is in the middle of snowpocalypse. Literally we are all pretty convinced the world is ending and my power has been flickering like crazy. BtR will be up as soon as possible, hopefully tomorrow if the elements don't conspire against me. Until then, kisses and love and be careful if you have to drive in shitty conditions. 3


	11. Chapter 11

The burger wasn't bad, it definitely could use some of that dill and mango chutney of Gabe's, but it didn't taste like over boiled high school cafeteria food either. Charlie wolfed down her food, some sort of Asian-inspired stir fry dish and then started eyeing his tater tots, so Cas gave them to her because he knew that he had eaten more of his own breakfast than the other girl had and he didn't think that his stomach could handle more than the burger and two mugs full of tea that he drank anyway.

"Sylvia Plath, author, gassed herself in her stove," Charlie forced out around a mouth full of tater tots, muttering an apology for spewing bits of half-chewed diced potato all over the table in front of herself.

"Hunter S. Thompson, political journalist, awesome-dude and my personal idol," Ash drawled, punting one of the peas on his tray lazily towards Pam's cleavage as the older woman leaned over her tray, rocking slightly and muttering to herself. "Awww, close. Gun to the noggin, pow."

"Wendy O. Williams, singer, also a gunshot," Castiel added, glancing over at Dean who had his fingers steepled under his chin and was frowning in concentration. "Give up, yet?"

"Uh, never." Dean replied, smirking at him before running a hand over the back of his neck and blowing out a heavy breath. "Mark Rothko, painter; not really my taste, but I've always liked impressionism."

"Okay, teacher's pet," Ash said challengingly. "But how did he do it?"

The other man glanced at Castiel one more time, fingering the cuffs of his shirt and awkwardly clearing his throat. "He took all of the anti-depressants in his house and then slit his wrists over the kitchen sink."

"Guess they didn't really help him much," Ash commented briskly, breaking the awkward silence that settled over the table as soon as Dean finished speaking. "Speaking of meds, where the hell is Garth?"

On cue, the lanky orderly came rushing into the room, balancing a tray full of little paper cups that rattled together as he sped around the room doling them out to most of the people still sitting around the clustered tables.

"Sorry, guys. My day's getting away from me a bit, you know how it is." Garth apologized, flicking his eyes over the cups that had the last names of the patients they were meant for written around the inside edge. "Okay, Lindberg. Winchester. And...Shurley. There you go guys, swallow and show me. Anybody seen Becky around?"

"She ate quick and then bolted," Charlie replied disapprovingly. "You'll probably find her down by the showers, especially if Jo is at the nurse's station."

"Shit," the other man cursed under his breath, glancing around the room and shaking his head. "Of course fucking Crowley's missing too. Listen guys, do me a solid and don't cheek your meds. I'm looking at you Ash, I've got to sort this crap out."

Castiel nodded, staring down at the little cup in his hand that was holding two small innocuous looking white and green capsuled pills. It wasn't Zoloft or at least he was pretty sure that it wasn't because the pills he used to take before he ran out and refilling the prescription just seemed too entirely pointless compared to everything else he had to do had been white pressed powder, sort of looking like the little blob guy that the anti-depressant company used in their commercials.

"Sucker," Ash crowed, dumping the four or so pills from his own cup into his hand so he could poke through them, taking two with a sip of water and pocketing the rest with a nonchalance that scared Castiel just a little bit. "That's what they get for letting students run the joint, Becky get's boned and I get stoned."

"Was is this?" Castiel asked, tilting his cup forward so that Charlie could peek into it only for the other girl to respond with a shrug.

"Let me see, Cas," Dean said, reaching out and grabbing his hand so that he could move it closer to him.

Castiel flinched from the unexpected touch, since meeting up with the other man after stress management he had been avoiding getting too close to Dean because then his body wouldn't get a chance to get ahead of his thoughts and he didn't not need his messed up physical reactions to everything telling him that his friendship with the other man was something more than just that. Because it wasn't, it fucking wasn't.

But god, Dean holding his hand and peering into his cup of pills while biting contemplatively on his bottom lip did all kinds of traitorous, horrible things to him south of the border. He couldn't tear his eyes off of Dean's mouth, even though it felt like all of the nerve endings in his wrist were on fire, right where Dean's fingers were wrapped around loosely with just a gentle pressure to keep him from moving away on the bump of his ulna that was jutting out sharply from the rest of his too thin arm. If he wanted to, he could pull away. Dean wasn't holding him tight or anything, but his mind felt fuzzy and warm instead of like the panicky, jumbled mess that it usually was.

He wanted to hold onto it, wrap the feeling around himself until the rest of the world stopped being so confusing and scary and indifferent towards him, but he couldn't. Dean's mouth was moving again, so the other man was talking and Castiel forced himself to focus on the words that had faded out into the background music that was usually running through his head when he started feeling slightly less horrible.

"That looks like Prozac," Dean mumbled, letting go of Castiel's hand which sank heavily a couple of inches now that it wasn't being supported by the other man holding on to him.

The green eyed man tipped his own cup of pills out onto his tray, poking around until he found one that looked just like the two that were in Cas's cup. Dean held it up triumphantly, smiling dizzyingly and dazzlingly at Castiel who shifted self-consciously and slumped down in his seat, tugging his shirt down as far as he could over the raging erection he had suddenly realized he was sporting under the table and hoping it would be enough to hide it until it went away, even if he had to sit in the cafeteria for the rest of the day.

"Yep, Prozac. See? I take that one too." Dean said, sweeping up the other four pills off of his tray and tossing them back with a grimace and a large gulp of water.

"You take a lot of pills," Cas commented, trying to think of anything other than how long and perfect Dean's neck was, how the fluorescent lights made his dark blond stubble stand out on his cheeks in a way that definitely shouldn't appeal to him as much as it did.

Dean shrugged, his smile faltering slightly before he jutted his chin back at Ash. "Better that I take them unlike, Dr. Gonzo over there; he is going to be off the walls for the rest of the night. Took me a long time to learn to trust Missouri enough before I would just swallow whatever she thought was best for me. You don't have to take it, that's your right as a patient, but she doesn't usually prescribe stuff without a reason."

"Is that your subtle way of asking why I'm here?" Castiel asked, pushing an agitated hand through his hair and picking up his tea so that he could take his own pills.

"Don't ask, don't tell," Ash sing-songed from the end of the table, widening his eyes at the fork he was holding in amazement before bringing it closer to his face to inspect it more thoroughly. "You find out all kinds of scary shit that way."

Charlie shook her head at the other man before looking back at Dean and reaching out to pat his hand. "You don't ask why someone is here, Cas. Not unless you're willing to tell them your story in return."

"Oh well..." Castiel began, trailing off awkwardly. He wasn't ready to tell any of these people his story, hell he didn't even really know what his story was past his overwhelming urge to jump off a bridge yesterday morning. Once he figured it out, maybe he would decide to tell them all.

"Don't take those with something hot," Dean interjected, catching Castiel's hand again before he could take a heaping gulp of his tea to wash down the two pills that he had put between his teeth. "The casing will melt and the inside of those things tastes like complete shit, plus you'll feel like puking your guts out and I'd rather not have to see that again. Here take it with this."

Dean offered Castiel the glass of water that he had taken his own pills with, holding it towards him with a shy smile on his face while the beaded condensation on the outside of the glass slid down and over his fingers. Castiel hesitated, distracted by the phantom, fake memory of how dream Dean's fingers had felt carding through his hair, different than how Meg's felt when she was trying to fix it for him and mumbling that it never fucking did anything she wanted it to.

"Shit, Cas." Dean scoffed, sounding slightly offended. "I don't have fucking cooties or anything, I'm just trying to help."

"It's not that," Castiel muttered, shaking off the feeling that wasn't real and really wasn't doing anything to help his half-wilted erection go away. He reached for the offered glass and quickly downed his pills, nodding at Dean before giving the water back to the other man. "I just got lost in my head a bit, thanks."

"No problem," Dean smiled, wrapping both of his hands around the glass before squinting at Ash and pointing a finger at the other man who was just sitting there with the fork held as close to his eye as he could manage without hurting himself. "Can you take that away from him, Charlie? Dude's freaking me out, guess we're postponing the game until he comes down or whatever."

"Probably for the best," Charlie replied, wrenching the fork out of Ash's grasp and replacing it with a sugar packet that held the other patient's attention just as much as the utensil had. She sighed and picked up her tray, adding the rest of Ash's silverware to her own before standing up. "I've got to go catch Missouri before her next group, talk to her about LGBTQ. See you both in a bit?"

"Yea, yea, go take over the world or whatever, brain." Dean said, waving the other girl away before taking a tentative sip out of the glass of water in his hands and chuckling to himself for a second. "Well if you had mono I guess I'm fucked now, Cas."

"I don't have mono," Castiel started, objecting to the accusation before he realized that Dean was joking with him. "I'd have to get around in order to get the kissing disease, I think you're safe, Dean. I'll be the last person you get it from."

"Well that's good to know," the other patient murmured, glancing up at him under his eyelashes and shifting closer in his seat, dropping his voice lower so that the only person who could hear him was Cas. "Hey, um...after dinner can you meet me somewhere?"

"I guess," Castiel said, clearing his throat and shifting away while trying to make it look like he was just crossing his leg over his knee. "What for?"

He didn't want Dean to get offended, think he didn't want to be near him or anything, but that was the entire problem. He did want to be near him or at least his body did, close enough to touch the little crinkles that formed around his eyes when he laughed or to count the freckles that bridged across his nose. Castiel's mind was telling him to get away, avoid letting himself get into a situation that might make him want to do something stupid that might get him punched in the face.

Michael had gotten beaten up once when Castiel was still in junior high, his mom had freaked out over his brother's busted lip and bruised ribs, but it had just made his brother more determined than ever to stick up for the underdogs. Starting the gay/straight alliance at school, pushing a petition through the school board that would make the school's bullying policy into one of zero tolerance, and doing all of it before he finished his sophomore year, maintaining a 4.0 GPA the entire time without breaking a sweat. They were big shoes to fill, his eldest brother's, and Cas knew he wasn't nearly as well-adjusted, so he leaned away from Dean, just a little even though every muscle in his body was telling him to lean in and see if this Dean's teeth caught his bottom lip just right, like they had in his dream.

"I have something I want to give you," Dean admitted, shrugging nonchalantly. "It's not anything important so if you'd rather not, I understand."

"No, I'll meet you," Castiel said quickly, cursing himself for sounding too eager and willing to spend time one on one with the other man because if he wasn't careful it would only get him in trouble. "Where?"

"That bench across the hall, about 7?"

"It's not like I have anything else to do or anything, so sure." Cas responded, trying to mimic Dean's easy shrug and being fairly certain that he hadn't pulled it off as smoothly.

"Novak your brother's girlfriend is here with your junk!" Jo yelled from the door to the cafeteria, earning a disapproving look from Ellen who was walking behind her. "Come on, so I can log your stuff in before I go."

"Go on," Dean told him softly, waving Castiel away with a bright smile on his face as he gestured to their two trays. "I'll take care of your tray; I'm probably going to end up having to do Ash's too anyway so it's not a big deal."

"You sure?" Castiel asked, hesitating for a second before he stood so that he could tug his shirt down again even though it had helped ease his erection to not have Dean touching him.

Dean nodded at him again, mumbling something unintelligible around the massive sandwich he was eating with chips.

"See you later," he added, heading towards the door and around the corner towards the nurse's station.

Kali was there, huddled close to the ward's locked doors with her phone pressed to her ear while Missouri stood off to the side with Becky, rubbing the other girl's shoulder and talking lowly to her. When Kali saw him coming she smiled, that ultra-bright smile of hers that his brother had first swooned over when Gabe met her in culinary school, and quickly ended her call. Castiel liked her hair better though, which was dark and flowy like Meg's and she usually wore it down, but today it was up in a messy bun that left wispy tendrils fluttering around her burnished brown neck.

He had always thought she was so pretty and he envied her no-shit attitude that was similar to Balthazar's girlfriend's; she definitely gave Gabriel a run for his money and his brother had kept her close even after their breakup because she was one of the few people who managed to talk him down from the mischievous heights he could reach if left to his own devices. Needless to say, she had not been around during the _Today Show_ debacle which worked because without it, Gabe would probably have remained a nameless sous chef to the pompous Frenchman that he had filled in for.

"Cassie-bear," Kali cooed, bundling him into a quick hug as she dropped a kiss on his cheek. "Gabs sent me with your stuff, said you were ready to bust a stitch when you found out you were going to have to wear his clothes. I thought I would rescue you from the fashion disaster that is your brother."

"It's not that bad," he said, shrugging and smiling because he was going to feel rude if he didn't even try to feign happiness at seeing her. "I just look like I'm prepared for a flood."

"It's a good look, I bet you're the belle of the ball. Driving all of the ladies wild," the other woman kidded, squeezing his arm before she knelt and hefted up a duffle bag onto the counter of the nurse's station. "I can't stay long, Gabe has some charity dinner that he is catering with Michael tonight and two of our prep cooks called in sick so I'm off to chop onions and potatoes like a slave."

"I didn't know they were doing something together," Castiel said softly, unzipping the bag and poking through it disinterestedly all in an effort to hide how hurt he was that his brothers had obviously planned a big ol' party and forgotten to invite him.

"I gave Balthazar the invitation three weeks ago," Kali replied frowning deeply, she did not like his roommate at all. "I freaking hand-delivered it because Gabe had convinced himself that it would get lost in the mail otherwise. He said he would give it to you."

"He probably just forgot and set it down somewhere," Castiel muttered, trying to half-heartedly defend his roommate's actions even though he knew with Kali, it was less than pointless. She had made up her mind about the other man the first time Cas had shown up at her and Gabe's apartment locked out of their dorm. "It's fine, I couldn't even go anyway if I had it. Don't really think they're going to be giving me a day pass or anything my second day here."

"Him and that little fucking tart treat you like a second class citizen," Kali spat, if she didn't like Balthazar then it was safe to say that Kali downright hated Meg. "I hope this place helps you realize that you deserve better than that."

"Don't bring Meg into this," he warned. Balthazar could be a dick, yes, but Meg had a lot going on and reasons for being oblivious to the stuff going on around her. Kali said she was self-absorbed and stuck up, he thought she was wounded and fragile and misunderstood; just like he was.

"Do you know what she had the nerve to ask me when Gabe and I went to get your stuff, Cas?" Kali asked suddenly, her eyes flashing dangerously. "She wanted me to see if you could pick up her dry-cleaning for her on your way home from school. On your bike, Cas."

"Did you tell her I was in here?" Castiel choked, feeling his heart pretty much stop because there was no way that Meg would ever want him if she knew that he had tried to kill himself; she didn't even know that he had been on anti-depressants, she didn't even know that he was depressed at all. "Christ, did you tell Balthazar?"

"No, we didn't tell them." Kali said reluctantly, crossing her arms over her red Johnny Cupcakes shirt and taking a deep nostril-flaring breath in before shutting her eyes and letting it out slowly. "Gabe told me you didn't want anyone to know. Cas, its nothing to be ashamed about. Mari was in and out of the hospital when we were kids and now she's on the right meds, her anxiety is under control. This is a good thing, I promise."

"I've already had the speech, Kal." He mumbled, glancing over to Missouri who was standing across from them with her pen scratching on a clipboard. Bobby had shown up too and was clicking through the computer in front of him with a confused frown on his face, muttering under his breath about malware and firewalls that Garth and Jo kept disabling. "If it helps, it helps. I guess we're just going to have to wait and see."

"Have you made any friends?" the other woman asked, eyeing Ruby who was stomping furiously down the hall to stand impatiently in front of Missouri. "Met anybody interesting?'

"Yea," Castiel replied, biting his lip and nodding. Dean came around the corner, herding Ash, who had a dazed look on his face, without touching him and laughing at the way the other patient was running his hand astonishedly over the wall beside them as they walked. Green eyes flicked over to him and Kali and the laughed died in Dean's eyes first before he dropped them back down to Ash and urged the other man to walk faster. "I've made a couple of friends. Most of the people here are pretty nice."

"Uh-huh," Kali deadpanned, peering past Castiel as Dean moved out of his line of sight behind him, headed towards the day area. "Met anybody...extra nice? Extra interesting?"

"No." Castiel said firmly, ignoring the feeling of eyes boring into his back and trying to focus on breathing so that he wouldn't hyperventilate from his lie. Michael said his biggest weakness was his inability to hide anything from anyone, but Anna said it was his greatest strength; fucking the importance of being earnest or something. "Everyone here is the regular amount of interesting."

"Sure," she said, smirking at him knowingly. "You should call Mike, he wanted to know if you planned on turning in those internship applications still. He said he would talk to your teachers about school if you need him to and that a couple of the internships would extend their deadlines if he just asked."

"Jesus fuck," Castiel groaned, earning a sharp look from Missouri who glanced up at the dying-moose sound he had made. "Why did you tell Michael?"

"He's family, duh."

"You're not family and you know," Castiel pointed out, running a trembling hand through his hair and gritting his teeth. Now he was going to have a panic attack? NOW?! "This is like life ruining shit here, Kali. What if I want to run for president or something someday?"

"Then you'll be an advocate for mental health awareness and proud of the obstacles you've overcome to get there," Kali replied firmly, putting a hand on his shoulder and shaking him slightly. "Take advantage of this situation, Cas. Figure your shit out and be honest with yourself and your doctor; with any luck you'll never have to be hospitalized ever again."

"Why is there a huge ring on your finger?" Castiel asked, focusing on the one thing that didn't have anything to do with himself or his problems, he was a pro at deflecting and fuck he needed a fucking deflection like crazy right now before his knees gave out and he started crying on the tile floor like a damn baby.

"Well, I may not be family yet..." Kali said, looking at her hand with a soft sigh and a smile before tucking it to Castiel's clenched fists with a firm determination.

"Gabe?"

"We haven't really told anyone yet," She confirmed with a small nod. "It didn't seem like the right time with first your mom being sick and then your dad has been freaking out, it just felt wrong."

"You've been engaged for a year?" Castiel said stunned, swallowing hard and shaking his head confusedly.

"We've been back together for a year," the other woman clarified. "And your mom knew that, but the engagement thing just happened recently and I'm taking the ring to get refitted so that's why I'm wearing it at all. All those chemicals we use to clean the restaurant take the shine right out of jewelry; I can't even wear earrings anymore."

"This is good," Castiel decided, voicing the opinion out loud and earning a smile from his future sister-in-law. "I'm happy for you both, really. You'll keep Gabriel from blowing himself up or something."

"Aww Cassie," Kali crooned, pulling him into another hug so that she could whisper the rest of her sentiment hotly into his ear. "I expect you to have a date for my freaking wedding. Don't make me set you up with someone, my cousins are all harpies."

He forced a chuckle and nodded, though honestly he couldn't picture himself spinning some faceless girl around a dance floor. The only girl he would ever want to take would be Meg and never in a million years was that going to happen, not unless he guilted her into it or something; Cas had seen Balthazar in a tux and by comparison he would look like a little boy playing dress up. It was laughable to even fantasize about it.

"It doesn't have to be a girl, Cassie." She added softly, giving him a final kiss on the cheek before turning briskly to Bobby and addressing the older man. "We good here? Everything I brought checks out?"

"No more books," Bobby grumbled, stacking up the study guides and thick library books that Castiel had borrowed to use as references for his paper on the counter top and pushing the folded pile of clothes and shoes towards Castiel with an apologetic nod. "Doctor's orders."

"Oh-kay?" Kali agreed balancing the books on her hip right as her phone started going off in her pocket. "Call Mike, Cas. He's worried about you too, y'know in that weird way he does."

"I'm calling dad later so I'll call him too," Castiel told her. "And welcome to my messed up family, Kal."

"I've been part of this madness since meeting Gabe. You Shurleys are like quicksand, you just sucked me right in and the harder I struggle to get away the deeper I get." Kali joked, catching his chin in her hand and looking at him sternly. "Love you, Cas. Be good and safe and just...give this a chance, for me?"

"For you and no one else, because you keep Gabe from harassing me."

"You have no idea," Kali muttered, rolling her eyes and gesturing towards the door so that Bobby could open it for her.

Castiel watched her go, sighing and trying not to think of how since his brother had started dating her when he was still in high school, she had always had him pegged. She called not only Gabe, but him and Mike and sometimes even Anna on their bullshit, using her fiery temper to quell arguments amongst the siblings because being on the receiving end of Kali's wrath was not something any of them wanted. Even Michael was cowed by her, his expensive suits and swanky apartment and company car doing nothing to protect him from her when she got really righteously angry about something. She was going to fit in to their family just fine, hell, she already did.

"Looks like you've got a pretty good support system there, Castiel." Missouri's voice spoke up behind him and he turned to find the therapist looking at him with an amused smile on her face. "A brother and a sister who care about you, not something a lot of my patients have. You're very lucky."

"I guess," he muttered, grabbing the stack of things Kali had brought him off the counter and holding it tightly against his chest. "I went to stress management today."

The therapist nodded, "I am aware, Ms. Zeddmore told me that you struggled a bit, but it is probably a good group for you to look into. Everyone deals with stress in different ways; maybe you just need to find a new way of dealing with yours."

He shrugged, glancing into the day area. Dean wasn't in there, but he had left Ash sitting on one of the couches with Becky at the other end, chattering and gesturing animatedly even though the other man didn't seem to be responding.

"Those uh...pills," Castiel stalled, hoping that Dean would show back up again, popping up out of nowhere like he seemed to do. He didn't know why he wanted to talk to Dean, but he sure as hell didn't want to sit through another group session by himself, maybe the other man was in the rec room.

"Fluoxetine," Missouri responded. "You'll take them in the morning and at lunch, one each time. We doubled up today because the prescription didn't get put in until after breakfast, but tomorrow when we talk I can adjust according to whatever family history you find out from your father. I need you to remember to call him, don't forget Castiel."

"I won't," he promised, edging slowly around her and looking pointedly towards the clothes in his arms. "I'm gonna go...uh...put this away."

The therapist nodded and turned towards Bobby, already talking to the nurse about something else involving the possibility of getting more staff during the daytime shifts. Castiel went and dumped his clothes on his bed, sighing with relief when he saw Charlie and Dean sitting in the rec room, looking slightly abashed as Ellen lectured them.

"Dean," the older woman was saying when he opened the door and slid around her, aiming for the armchair that sat empty next to Charlie. "You aren't a level, you know you aren't supposed to be in here."

"Missouri told me I didn't lose my level from sneaking out," Dean protested, glancing over at Castiel and licking his lips nervously. "El, let me stay. I'll be good for the rest of the day, no sneaking out or anything."

"Hon, you didn't have a level to lose and you should want to follow the rules every day, not just when you want brownie points," Ellen responded, putting her hands on her hips and sighing when Dean turned puppy-dog eyes onto her. "Three days and I don't want to hear you and Charlie playing that idiotic game. The one that leaves you both covered in bruises that make it look like Bobby and I are abusing you."

"Sock-off," Charlie whispered in Castiel's direction.

He nodded quickly at her, like the nonsensical name meant anything to him at all. But he pushed his glasses up his nose and grinned when Ellen tossed a book into Dean's lap off of the coffee table, urging him to read a book or something so that he didn't rot his brain with video games.

"What about Charlie? All she does is rot her brains," Dean commented, making a face at the romance novel that had ended up on him before holding it up towards Castiel with a pained look on his face. "Can you believe this shit?"

It was one that Cas had read, so he really had no comment for the other man besides a shake of his head that he hoped came across as disapproving instead of guilty.

"Watch your mouth," Ellen warned, holding up a stern finger that lost something in translation when she started chuckling. "And Charlie's got plenty of extra brains to let rot, yours are the ones I worry about Dean."

"Gee thanks," Dean muttered, leaning back comfortably on the couch as he watched the woman leave before he stuck his tongue out at her back and plopped down to lay his head in Charlie's lap. "Play something without guns, Charlie."

"Pokemon," the girl replied seriously, snatching up the controller where it was sitting next to her leg.

Castiel smiled and turned to sit cross-legged in the chair, placing his back against an armrest so that he could watch Charlie play the game. When he looked over at the pair again, Dean had his eyes shut and seemed to be sleeping in the other girl's lap, but his fingers were moving against his chest where they were resting; twitching and drawing swooping patterns on the material of the plain grey t-shirt he had on under his flannel.

He desperately wanted to know what Dean was going to give him. Cas knew it wasn't a drawing or anything, that was M.W. which he still needed to ask Charlie about once they got a second alone again, but he was still curious. Hell, maybe he should apply some of that psychobabble Maggie had been spewing about patience, besides he still had to worry about his phone calls. To his dad and to Michael and hell, he might as well fucking call Meg too while he was at it, just complete the circle of miserable conversations in one fell swoop before he met with Dean so that it was one less thing he had to stress about.

Because he might as well tell Meg he loved her, so that he could take care of the aftermath of that bombshell while he was in here with a therapist at his disposal. It was going blow up in his face, but liking a girl was better than liking a boy and if nothing else it might get him a pity date to Gabe and Kali's wedding.

* * *

Author Note: I don't know why I'm writing weddings into everything, fuck it. Weddings for everyone! I will marry Sam to a puppy in this fic and then run off cackling into the sunset (not really, but wtf weddings freals). Anyway, glade to see the new readers and followers and reviews. All feedback is much appreciated and I love it as much as I love you all.


	12. Chapter 12

Castiel ended up spending a majority of the afternoon with Dean and Charlie, just watching the girl play video games and mutter obscenities under her breath while Dean dozed with his head in her lap and hummed softly to himself. It sounded like a vague mish-mash of classic rock songs and themes for television shows, Gilligan's Island and Three's Company being the only ones that he could pick out with any certainty.

He even played Pokemon for a little while, struggling terribly with the unfamiliar controller of the video game console and listening desperately to the pointers that Charlie was yelling at him until he got distracted by how great Dean looked when he was laughing and the girl snatched the controls back so that she could rescue his poor undertrained little skull dragon thingy from being destroyed. Cas knew that he was only making things worse for himself by hanging out with Dean.

Experience had taught him, mostly with Meg that the more time he spent alone with someone he admired or liked the worse it was when he was inevitably rejected or saw them with someone else. It shouldn't matter so much, it didn't matter because Dean may be too cool to be his friend if they were outside this place, but being in a mental institution seemed to be the great equalizer.

You didn't have to know what someone's job was, who their family might be, or what their plans after getting out of school were because all anyone was in this place was a name and a number on a thin plastic wristband and it was an invisibility that felt painfully familiar and comforting in all the ways that it shouldn't. No one here needed to know more about him than the surface details because like Charlie had explained to him at lunch, no one was going to ask about the specifics of his life unless they were willing to share there's. And that seemed highly unlikely.

So he conceded that yes, hanging out with Dean even with other people around was probably the dumbest idea he had had in a while, but he justified it by saying that as long as he didn't let the other man in, past the barriers and the safeties that he had put into place to keep himself from getting hurt then it would be ok. As long as he fought against the small part of his brain that was telling him that Dean equaled safe and calm and happy and all of the comforting words that he used to associate with watching his mom paint, then meeting with the other man after his phone calls and dinner shouldn't be a problem.

Because Meg equaled happy too or at least he got the same kind of gut-wrenching, spine tingling feelings of want when he thought of her also, but he was only getting those for Dean because he was confused and hopefully taking the medication that Missouri had given him would help that stop. He was supposed to want it to stop, right? Castiel did, he wanted it to stop, and he wanted to have normal relationships instead of ones that were based solely on what he or his family name could do for someone. So he would stop staring at Dean even if he had to walk around with his eyes closed and he would keep his traitorous hands to himself because he really really wanted to touch Dean's hair, just once, to see if it was as soft as it looked.

Thankfully, Dean chose the moment he was just about to break and lunge across the space separating him and the other man so that he could rub a lock of Dean's hair in between his fingertips, probably pushing Charlie into an extremely pissed off heap on the floor as he went, to get up and announce that he had something to finish and that he would see them all after he was done.

"But, Dean—" Charlie started, sounding slightly hurt as she paused her game with a little frown on her face.

"I'll be there, Charlie." Dean promised waving her off and looking pointedly at the other girl for a second before glancing at Castiel and licking his lips nervously. "I just have something to take care of first, you know I never miss."

"I'm holding you to that, Winchester." Charlie said sternly, smiling warmly at the other man before turning back to her game with a little flip of her hair over her shoulder. "Don't make me come hunt you down, I _will_ give Lisa those pencils back."

"You wouldn't dare," Dean replied, adopting an exaggerated frightened face before he addressed Castiel who did his best to look like he hadn't just been gaping open-mouthed at Dean's butt. He was just going to have to gouge his eyes out, that was the only solution. "Cas, I'll uh...see you later right? Seven?"

He cleared his throat and nodded quickly, knowing that he was blushing hot scarlet under the scrutinizing stare that the redhead had fixed him with, glancing back and forth between him and Dean with a sly smirk on her face that made him want to deny even knowing who Dean was in the first place. God, she was worse than Kali with that fucking look and it made him want to either hug her because the both of them were just so much like his sister that it hurt or throw a pillow at her face to make her stop looking at him like that. He chose to do the latter, softly, which made Dean smile again before leaving and it gave Castiel the chance to compose himself while Charlie sputtered weakly in protest at him.

"So hot date, huh?" Charlie asked, smoothing her hair back down where it had gotten ruffed during Castiel's half-hearted assault.

Cas felt himself blanch from her question, the blood that had been burning his face sinking all the way to his stomach to make it feel heavy and painfully full.

"No, not a date." He said quickly, his voice sounding too loud and too guilty and he knew that any hope he had had of convincing Charlie of the lie that he had been telling himself since lunch so that he wouldn't freak out and bail on Dean was gone as soon as the girl rolled her eyes at him and unpaused her game. "It's just...he has something he wants to give me."

"I'm sure Dean has a lot of things he'd like to give you," Charlie muttered, jabbing hard at the controller in her hand. "But not all of them involve plans and times and actual thought, he's more of a do it if it feels right kind of guy."

"Lucky guy," Cas said sourly, crossing his arms tight over his chest and turning his attention back towards the television.

He wished he was the kind of person who could just be spontaneous like that, act on whatever thoughts he had just because they felt right or good or whatever, but he was more the freak out and faint kind of guy. Especially if how long he had spent fantasizing about the drunken, close mouthed kiss on the lips that Meg had given him on New Year's Eve was any indication of how pathetically inept he was about know when the timing was right to do anything.

"This is the most cautious I've ever seen him actually," Charlie said with a shrug, looking meaningfully over at Castiel who had started gnawing on the jagged ends of his nails again, even though it hurt it was the kind of pain he needed to focus on instead of how much he sucked at everything he attempted to do, even fucking killing himself. "He must really li—"

"Are we doing this Charles?" Crowley drawled, sounding so entirely bored with living in general that Castiel wondered briefly how he was even still standing. "I have a very busy schedule you know. People to do, places to go."

"Go fucking where, Crowley?" Charlie snapped, obviously annoyed with having been interrupted by the disinterested foreigner when she and Castiel were talking.

He didn't reply, just stared at the red head with his eyebrow raised as she muttered more obscenities under her breath and saved her game. Charlie climbed to her feet and carefully set the video game controller down onto the coffee table, shutting off the TV, and heading towards the door. She stopped when she realized that Castiel wasn't following her, just sitting in the chair that he had been in for most of the afternoon with a look of utter despair on his face.

"You coming, Cas?"

"Hmm? To what?" Castiel replied, snapping out of the daze that he had lost himself in as he thought of how much easier it would've been to just have taken a bunch of sleeping pills and never wake up, if only he knew someone who had any.

"To the LGBTQ support group," Charlie explained, making an impatient gesture with her hand before she swept her hair off of her neck again with an annoyed sigh. Her hair was back in a bun again before he knew it and Cas had never understood how girls did that so quickly.

"No," he said biting the inside of his cheek to keep himself from protesting more than that because otherwise it would sound suspiciously like he had something to hide. "I have to call my family, Missouri had some questions she wanted me to ask my dad."

"Oh, well. If you get done quick, we'll save you a seat," Charlie said shrugging at Castiel before spinning out of the room with Crowley trailing lazily behind her.

Cas knew there was no chance in hell of him going to that support group, he didn't need it because he wasn't any of those things. He was just...he had confusing feelings and...questions. Questions that he didn't feel comfortable asking a stranger about and no one in his family would understand.

Michael was practically a monk, his last girlfriend had been sometime in junior high and all Castiel could remember was him and Anna and Gabe teasing their older brother mercilessly with the kissing song over and over until the words started to lose all meaning. Gabe obviously had Kali and while he joked about being more than straight it was always only that, jokes. Anna, well, to Castiel she would always be his perfect angelic sister, probably the only person he would murder for if someone hurt her, but he knew that she liked those soft-spoken dancer boys she went to school with. None of them were gay or lesbian or even bisexual which would at least be something he could work with if it meant he wasn't the only one who was even more different from the rest of his siblings than he already was.

He stared miserably at the blank television screen for a little while, waiting until he was sure Charlie was down in the day area or wherever the group was being held so that he wouldn't have to lie to her again before he got up and went to retrieve the phone card that he had asked Gabriel to get him from his room so that he could use the payphone in the hallway outside of Dean and Charlie's room. Castiel scratched off the foil paint on the back of the card with the tip of what was left of his nail, grimacing a bit because the ragged, torn nubs were sensitive and raw, to reveal the code he needed underneath.

Cas tried not to glance into his friends' bedroom as he passed, but it was like a reflex. His neck just turned without him even thinking about it and he pushed down the instant disappointment that he felt when he didn't see Dean sitting on his bed inside the space, just a couple of scattered pens and pencils on the bed that his friend had been lounging on earlier and Charlie's copy of _The Hobbit_ lying in a spot of honor on top of her neatly stacked pillows.

"You're fucking being ridiculous," Castiel muttered, cursing himself for being so in over his head already that it felt like he was drowning.

This was worse than Alfie and that had been bad enough that he had considered changing his GRE study group before the other man started bringing his girlfriend, Muriel along with him under the pretense of her needing to study too. It was a thin excuse, but Cas knew that it was what they both needed to feel comfortable around each other again and the other girl made cookies that could rival Gabe's which made her a more than welcome addition as far as the rest of the group was concerned. For him it had come as a relief that she was there, but he had doubled up his dosage of Zoloft until he ran out, hoping to make it so he didn't feel guilty every time he looked at the man and his girlfriend.

And he didn't even have dreams about Alfie like he had Dean, he should feel so much worse now than he had then, but for some reason he couldn't summon up the same emotions when he thought of Dean and how he laughed and talked to him like he mattered. All he could feel was warmth settling in his bones and the desire to sleep wrapped safe in someone's arms just one more time like he had when he was a kid, feelings that he had always associated with his family and no one else, not even Meg.

He decided to call her last when he got to the phone, needing to reassure himself that he still felt more for his best friend's girlfriend than he ever had anyone else; felt the coursing need to have her want him like he wanted her, to have her notice him so that when he did go and meet Dean he would know that whatever feelings he thought he might be having for the other man were just an anomaly and nothing as serious as what he felt for Meg. Because he was starting to have even more questions, ones that were stacked on top of each other until they pressed all of the air out of his lungs and the only time his mind wasn't flooded with them was when he was around Dean.

It scared the shit out of him.

Castiel read through the instructions on the back of the phone card with the receiver cradled between his shoulder and his ear, listening to the droning buzz of the dial tone for a couple of seconds before he started punching in the number for his sister's cell phone first so that he could check to see how lucid his dad was before he braved that conversation.

"_My underage daughter's phone, Chuck Shurley speaking, how may I help you?"_

So much for preparedness.

"Dad," Cas said weakly, trying to sound enthusiastic and failing because he wasn't sure how to have this conversation with his father and he really didn't want to use the words 'hospital' or 'sick' because they would just remind him and the older man of his mother. "It's Castiel."

"_You act like I don't know my own son's voice,"_ his father groused, causing Cas to smile just a bit because he sounded good, together. More so than he had in a long time or even the last time he had talked to him. _"Did you end up doing what I told you do to? Are you calling from some rehab place or something because I didn't recognize the number?"_

"It's sort of like rehab, I guess," he muttered in reply, glancing nervously at Ruby who was leaning on the wall farther down the hallway, talking in heated whispers with Ash who still seemed slightly out of it if the way he was swaying slightly side to side was any indication. He saw the other man nod and fumble into the pocket where he had put his extra pills earlier before handing some over to Ruby. "Some people take it more seriously than others though."

"_Well what are you gonna do,"_ the older man said with a sigh. _"I guess you are calling to tell us you weren't going to be at your brother's thing tonight? Not like you can if you're on a locked ward."_

"Did you talk to Kali?"

"_No, your mother told me,"_ his father said offhandedly and Castiel shut his eyes hard against the pain that flared up at his temples. _"She's happy that you took her advice."_

"Dad—" Castiel warned, putting an arm against the wall to steady himself because he felt like his knees were going to give out underneath him and he really really did not want to talk about his mom right now. "I actually called for a reason."

"_I figured you hadn't just called me twice in one week because you missed me,"_ the older man stated jokingly. Chuck Shurley sounded so different on the phone, better than he look when Castiel had visited him last over a month ago , when his father had looked wan and hollow-eyed and had barely spoken to any of them over the awkward family dinner that he and Anna had made for the older man. _"What do you need, son?"_

"I'm in a mental ward," Castiel blurted, his father may think he knew, but he didn't know. The writer couldn't possibly know how dreamlike this was for him or how just the two days he had already spent cut off from his real life felt more real to him than a lot of other things had in a long long time. "In Brooklyn. Long Island College Hospital, my doc—um...therapist is named Missouri Moseley. She needs more information about my medical history, more than I knew so she wanted me to ask so that she could treat me better."

"_Well,"_ his father began, humming through the receiver in Cas's ear like he only did when he was lost in thought. He could almost picture his father scratching idly at the permanent stubble on his face or contemplatively cleaning his glasses like he did when he was stalling for time_. "You uh, you had asthma as a kid and you broke your arm from falling off of the jungle gym at school once, your mother about had a heart attack over that. Refused to let you go back to that hippie music school after that, said they weren't watching you carefully enough."_

"No," Castiel said around his smile, remembering how his mom had drawn an intricate landscape on the wrist part of his cast because Gabe had signed it so big that everyone else had to make do with what was left of the white, plaster canvas on his arm to leave their mark. It had been a beachscape, with the Coney Island Ferris wheel in the background and the boardwalk leading off into the sunset. "She mean's like my family medical history, my birth family. She needs to know if like mental instability runs in my family, I should have pointed her at Gabriel and let her psychoanalyze him for a bit."

He had expected his father to laugh at his thin joke, Gabe had always been the wild and outlandish one in their family and it was easy to say that he could be called crazy by an outside observer. But the older man was ominously silent on the other end of the phone, so quiet that Castiel could hear the keyboard clacking at the nurse's station on his end and Anna chattering around in the background on his father's end in SoHo.

"_What was your doctor's name again?"_ His father asked tightly.

"Missouri Moseley," Castiel replied confusedly, frowning at a spot of paint on the wall that someone had been picking at while they talked. "You can just tell me and I'll tell her, actually she has like a list of things she needs to know, but I forgot it in my room. Hang on just a sec, dad I'll go get it."

"_No that's okay, Castiel."_ Chuck Shurley replied quickly, stopping Cas just as he was trying to figure out which would be best, lying the phone horizontally on the cradle or letting it hang by its metal chord down towards the floor as he rushed to his room to get the list of questions that Missouri had given him earlier. _"I'll call her and talk to her, here you sister wants to talk to you. Anna, come say hello to your brother! I want you to call me if you need me son, I love you. I worry about you."_

"Don't worry about me, dad." Castiel protested softly, his father was avoiding telling him something. He was acting just like he had when Amelia Shurley's test results had come back, leaving his children to speculate to each other while he tried to shoulder the burden of his wife's illness alone until it became too hard to hide anymore.

"_Yea, well worry is what your mother and I signed on for when we decided to have children. I keep telling your sister that every time she offers to dye my hair, but I guess my decrepitude just doesn't sit right with her young, fragile nerves. Anna, out of the mirror now! Here she is, Castiel."_

"Thanks, dad." Castiel muttered, sometime between Anna discovering boys and him moving out of the house, Cas has forgotten how to speak to his younger sister.

She had become just another one of those girls who talked in riddles and circles around him and as much as he loved her, sometimes he just wanted to shake her and tell her she didn't have to play dumb in order to get boys to like her. If they couldn't handle her being smart and fierce and brave like their mom had been then they weren't worth her time. But he figured that she would learn that in her own time, just like he had learned to avoid the hallways and corners where the jocks who hated Michael had lurked and to stick close to Gabriel and his older friends as much as possible.

"_Cas!"_ his younger sister shrieked happily into the phone, causing him to pull it away from his ear and wince from the shrillness of the sound. _"Are you okay? You're going to miss the party!"_

"I'm working on okay, Anna." Castiel sighed, taking his glasses off so that he could pinch the bridge of his nose and try to relieve the tension headache he could feel bearing down on him. "And honestly, I probably would've missed it anyway; Balthazar forgot to give me my invitation. What is it for anyway?"

"_Some big, gay charity thing that Michael has convinced his firm to back, their new PR guy said it would make the company look a little bit less like soulless, money grubbing one percenters and you know Mike, always the crusader of the family,"_ Anna said in that rapid-fire way of speaking that she had sometimes when she was really excited about something. _"I bought a new dress for it. It's black, Cas. A little black dress and dad is letting me wear mom's wedding pearls. I look about a million different kinds of amazing. I wish you were going."_

"I look like shit in a tux anyway," Castiel muttered, allowing himself a momentary sulk before he remembered that the last charity thing he had gone to for Michael had ended up with him hurling all over the shoes of one of his brother's coworkers. Luckily it had just been someone's assistant and the woman had been very understanding, horrified, but understanding none the less. "Speaking of dresses, do you think I can borrow one from you for something?"

"_Do you have something else you need to tell us, Cas?"_ Anna teased, causing her older brother to immediately regret his choice in words and roll his eyes. _"There's nothing wrong with crossing dressing, but that just means that you and Mike won't be able to march together in the pride parade."_

"Whatever, its not for me jerk. There's a girl here who has an interview for a job or y'know, I'm not really sure what she needs it for, but she needs some dress clothes. Something professional looking and I think you and her are close to the same size, do you have something that you think might work?"

"_Yea, I'm pretty sure I have a Hilary Clinton pantsuit or something around here, need jewelry?"_

"Just whatever girls wear with that kind of stuff," Castiel replied with a shrug, reaching out a tentative finger to pick at the misshapen blotch of peeled paint some more. "When do you think you can bring it by?"

"_Well, I'm going out of town for the rest of spring break with Hael and Nate to their parent's house in Montauk, but I will ask Mike or Gabe if one of them can bring it to you."_ Anna said offhandedly. _"Do you think I should wear my hair curly or straight?"_

"Jeez, Anna." Castiel muttered, wincing away from the paint splotch when a piece of it stabbed him hard under his nail bed, making it well up red with blood. "I'm not a girl, I don't know. Straight?"

"_Ugh that's going to take for fucking ever,"_ his younger sister cursed. _"I guess I better go do that then. Do you need anything else, Cas? Fashion advice? Dancing tips? A list of reasons why it is time for you to stop pining over Meg already?"_

"What does that have to do with anything?" Castiel snapped.

"_You realize that I talk to Kali like pretty much every day, right?" _Anna asked, sounding smug and snide in all the ways he hated girls to sound when it was directed at him. _"I'm just saying that you complain all the time about how no one ever notices you, but then you don't realize it when someone does. Maybe you just need new glasses or something, we'll you Lasik."_

"I'm going," Cas warned, leaning closer to the cradle of the phone with the receiver, threatening to hang it up with his body language even though he knew that his sister couldn't see him. "You're being a butt face and I'm hanging the phone up now, love you. Thank you for the clothes."

"_Cas, I'm just going off of what Kal told me, don't get all secretive and closed off like you do when you're upset."_ Anna protested, sighing hard into the phone, probably through her nose which he always told her made her look like an angry bull. _"Just...shit fuck...I wish you were coming with us tonight, it would be good for you. I'll send a couple of outfits, okay? Love you, brother bear."_

"Love you, sister soldier. Make sure Dad has fun tonight, please?"

"_The funnest, bye."_ Anna signed off with Castiel hanging up the phone into the cradle with a determined click.

He hated talking on the phone so fucking much and just the one conversation had made him tired as hell, but that was just one down and he had two more to go. Talking to Meg was starting to look more and more like the least painfully confusing conversation he would have tonight and it annoyed him to no end that Anna and Kali felt the need to gossip about him like schoolgirls behind his back, fucking no good meddlers.

Castiel dialed in the number to Michael's office, glancing at the clock which showed that it was about a quarter to five already. His brother always rode the clock, staying at work most nights until well after five o'clock finishing up things that he was doing for the various charities he participated in or the accounts that he serviced. Gabe had joked once that he might as well get a futon for his large, corner office since he was there all of the time anyway. Even with the dinner or gala or whatever snooty term they had used on the invitation to the party tonight that he hadn't gotten, Cas had just assumed that his oldest brother would still be there so he was surprised and only slightly put off by Michael's secretary telling him that he had left already.

After dialing his cell phone next, Castiel sank down next to the phone to sit on the floor, pulling the metal chord taunt as he brought his knees up to rest his forearms on them. It rang, once, twice...three times. By four he was ready to hang up, but he didn't because that was when someone answered, only it wasn't his brother or a secretary or even a voice he recognized at all.

"_Michael Shurley is unavailable right now because he lost the three hundred dollar cufflinks I gave him! And is looking for them, can I take a message?"_

"Um...who is this?" Castiel asked warily, reaching down in an attempt to tug the cuffs of his borrowed sweat pants down again. He was going to have to change before he met with Dean later, not that it should matter, because he looked like a huge fucking dork with his high-waters on.

"_Who is this?"_ the voice on the other end countered and Castiel was immediately relieved that there was someone who could possibly sass right back at his brother answering his phone, for whatever reason it may be. Michael was far too used to people bowing and scraping and worshipping him for Castiel's taste, he needed to be brought back down to this planet once and a while and really the task should fall to more people than just their immediate family.

"This is his brother, Castiel." He explained, biting his lip and hoping the strange voice's first reaction wasn't to exclaim over how sad it was that he was in a mental ward. It was bad enough that his whole family knew, he didn't want it getting farther than that. "I was just calling to uh...check in. Tell him I was okay."

"_Your whole family is just the sweetest, calling each other all the time to make sure each other is alive, more than father can say. I'm Luke by the way, I work with Michael, public relations."_

"So this whole charity thing tonight was all your doing?" Castiel asked. "From how my sister described you, I would not have pegged you for the type of person to by three hundred dollar cufflinks."

"_Between you, me, and the sea, Castiel?"_ Luke replied, lowering his voice conspiratorially. _"I spent about twenty bucks on them, I'm just trying to put some hitch in his giddy up finding them, we were supposed to be at the venue twenty minutes ago to meet with Gabriel."_

"I won't keep you then," Cas said with a sigh, slightly relieved that he had dodged having at least one conversation that he really had not wanted to have. "Just um...tell Mike that I called him and have him call me back at this number just whenever is fine. I'm not in any hurry."

"_Yea he was saying something about you and school and internships, so serious. I told him to let you enjoy your spring break, you're only young once."_

"I think my brother skipped being young and just went straight to being responsible and uptight," Castiel muttered sourly.

"_Nah, you just gotta know the right way to finagle him. I've learned that Broadway seems to do it for him, but we'll keep that just between just the two of us also, right Castiel?" _

"Of course, it was nice meeting you, sort of." Castiel told the other man, smirking confusedly over their almost, accidental almost introduction and tilting his head so that he could hold the receiver with his chin and scratch his bare ankle.

"_It was nice to sort of meet you too, Castiel. I'll tell Michael you called."  
_

Castiel reached up blindly, struggling to hang up the phone again because he didn't want to get up unless he was going to stay up and he almost didn't want to call Meg because he knew it was going to be horrible. Even ending his not really phone call with Michael's coworker, that had been pleasant and confusing in an unexpected way, had not helped settle the churning, boiling nausea that was climbing up his throat when he thought of telling Meg how he felt about her.

Because he was so stupidly, destructively in love with her that the only way it could all end would be bad and the rational side of him knew that. The irrational side still foolishly held out hope that maybe she had been pining after him for the last four years too and that her relationship with Balthazar was just some contorted way she had of getting closer to him.

"Need a hand?"

Castiel looked up to see Crowley leaning against the wall across from him, watching him with a sharkish smile on his face. The other man was all in black today, decked out in dapper looking business casual with the top couple of buttons of his black dress shirt opened at the collar. He felt nothing when he looked at the other man; not the safe, comforting warmth that he felt around Dean or the burning, almost painful desire that he got with Meg. It was just a blankness, the empty nothingness that he had gotten so used to over the past year that he hadn't even realized until now that it hadn't been his constant companion since arriving at the hospital.

"I have one more phone call to make," Castiel replied emptily, it felt like the tile and the bland off-white hospital paint and Crowley's monochromatic wardrobe were just leeching all of the color and warmth out of his life again. This felt about right, this felt normal. "Aren't you supposed to be in some group somewhere? You seemed pretty impatient earlier."

"Those fags and dykes are always so touchy feely; I really should stop expecting any grand dramas or romances to come out of there. Its just so...dull. Here, allow me," Crowley stepped forward and flicked his finger over the metal piece on the pay phone that made the dial tone restart. "What number are you trying to reach?"

"I need to use my phone card," Castiel muttered, reaching half-heartedly for the thin card before Crowley waved him off.

"Nonsense, call the bird collect. I am correct in assuming that it is a girl?" Crowley asked, glancing down at Castiel who just nodded at his knees. "You didn't strike me as the type to be in the throes of some sexual identity crisis, much more put together than those drama queens in LGBTQ. Crying over how they had such a hard time coming to term with themselves and blah blah blah. How difficult is it to just be attracted to who you're attracted to and leave it at that? Why does there have to be a sob story attached to it?"

"Because people are bullies," Castiel offered the other man who just rolled his eyes in response.

"Must just be Americans, I've never had a problem with it. Everyone loves me exactly the way I am, why wouldn't they? I'm perfect. Number?"

_More like you're a narcissist,_ Castiel thought, rattling off Meg's cell phone number and then holding the phone up to his ear, blocking out Crowley who continued to chatter and loiter around him.

He fought against the panic that griped him when the automated system asked for him to insert name here when it was telling Meg who she was getting a collect call from, half of him prayed that she would reject the call because then that would be a sort of finality, the ultimate way of her saying that she didn't want to have anything to do with him. It would be like hearing her say 'Castiel who?' after he said his name, but of course that wasn't what he heard because the little automated voice lady was talking again, telling him that his call had been accepted and he was about to die right there on the cold tile floor from a fucking heart attack.

"_Castiel Jeremiah Shurley!"_ Meg admonished. _"Where in the ever loving fuck are you? I needed my dress from the dry-cleaners so that I could wear it to this thing Balthy is taking me to tonight. It's like the only fancy dress that I have and Kelly told me she would pass the message on to you since you weren't responding to my texts."_

"First, my middle name is not Jeremiah." Castiel said, sighing and running a hand through his hair. It came away sweat slicked and he grimaced at the perspiration before wiping it disgustedly on his t-shirt. "Secondly, her name is Kali, not Kelly and thirdly, what is Balthazar taking you to tonight? Is it a charity event?"

"_Yea, how did you know?"_ Meg asked excitedly. _"He says he got the invitation weeks ago, but just found it in the mail you guys leave scattered all over the counter a few of days ago and remembered about it. That's why I need my dress, Cas."_

"I'm not going to bring you your fucking dress, Meg!" Castiel shouted, causing Crowley to give him a surprised look before slinking off around the corner back towards the rec room and the showers.

"_Well ex-cuse me,"_ Meg scoffed and he could almost picture the offended look that she had on her face, how her nose would crinkle up distastefully and her lips would purse in displeasure. He hated that he had been the one to cause that look, the one that was reserved for waiters who brought her regular bottled water instead of French mineral water when she would meet him between his classes for lunch. _"Sorry for asking for one little favor from you, Castiel. I know you're soooo busy. You have all those fucking papers to write all of those fucking books to read because you're just so much damn smarter than the rest of us to be bothered with doing normal things like interacting with people."_

"I can interact with people," he replied weakly, banging his head softly on the wall behind him and just wishing that it would be enough that his skull might cave in and put him out of his misery already. "I haven't been answering your texts because I'm interacting with people. I'm not a complete social reject."

"_Oh and who is this mystery person that you're interacting with? Who doesn't care that you're calling other girls collect and you're paying for this call, I might add, while you're with them?"_ the love of his life, future mother of his children asked sounding spitefully amused.

"Their name is..." Castiel searched around the hallway, looking for something that he could used to make up a name in a Jan Brady inspired moment of ill-planned spontaneity. His eyes landed on the name plate for Dean and Charlie's bedroom. "Charlie."

"_Oh, well Cas."_ Meg struggled. _"I mean...I guess that makes sense, I've never really seen you with a girlfriend or anything."_

"Short for Charlene," he explained quickly. "Charlie is short for Charlene. A girl. A girl person who I'm just friends with."

"_I didn't know you had other friends that were girls," _Meg replied softly, sounding slightly hurt to his wishful ears. _"That's good though, I can't be the only one trying to set you up all the time. You hate all my single friends anyway."_

"You single friends are all horrible, but that's not why I called." Castiel said, searching for the best way to explain his feelings to the girl without freaking her out. He blew out a heavy breath and scrubbed a hand over his face, settling on the shared memory that Meg was most likely to remember. "Do you remember that party? The one from freshman year where me and you and Balthazar all met each other?"

"_Of course I remember it, Cas. It was pretty much the party that changed my life, introduced me to the two most important people in it, I'll never forget it." _

"Good, well listen. I know this is going to sound strange and possibly offensive, but did you come to that party that night knowing that you were going to hook up with someone?" Castiel held his breath.

He knew that Meg wasn't exactly shy about her sexuality and she and Balthazar had gone through numerous 'breaks' where she had paraded other guys through their apartment to make his roommate jealous. But no girl liked to be called a slut or easy so he was waiting for her to completely and utterly verbally tear him limb from limb.

"_Wow,"_ she began, clearing her throat softly. _"Direct much? I mean, how am I supposed to answer that, Cas?"_

"Just forget I said anything," he offered quickly, rapping his knuckles agitatedly on the floor beneath him.

"_No, I'll answer just...fuck. I mean, I was a freshman, Cas. I wasn't looking for anything serious then so I guess the answer is yes,"_ Meg told him, he could hear a faint clattering sound in the background. She was probably putting on her makeup, he watched her do it sometimes sitting on the closed toilet lid while she pouted and applied her lipstick, smirking at him in just her pajamas before she came back later asking him to zip her into whatever dress she was wearing to go out with Balthazar in. _"Why does it matter?"_

"Well, I've just always wondered..."

"_Wondered what, Cas?"_

"If I had a shot," he said softly. "With you."

"_No, we are not talking about this."_ Meg said briskly.

"Please, Meg. I just need to know. Pretend that I'm dying."

"_If you were dying I still wouldn't answer,"_ Meg snapped angrily. _"It's a ridiculous question to ask. The kind that ruin friendships, Cas. And you're one of my best friends."_

"Please." He as begging, but he needed to know if he had anything in that apartment worth going back to, if he had anything worth getting better waiting for him outside of here.

"_I told you I wasn't looking for anything serious. Me and Balthazar, we just kind of happened and you well, you were just so shy and quiet and sweet. I honestly thought you were gay for like six months until Balthazar and I walked in on you kissing that girl, what was her name?"_

"April," Castiel said softly. She had been his lab partner during freshman biology and later had come out to him right before the end of the semester; apparently he had been her last try at heterosexuality for her parents before she finally admitted to herself that she only liked girls. That rejection still hadn't stung as much as the ones he got from Meg on pretty much a daily basis that first year she had been dating his roommate. "Why did you think I was gay?"

"_Because you never made a move, Cas_!" Meg exclaimed. _"On literally anyone, even me. And Balthazar and I weren't officially anything for almost that entire first year. Not until you two got the apartment and separate bedrooms with doors that locked."_

Death.

"I never knew that."

"_You never asked, you were always so worried about your grades and you never wanted to go out anywhere. It would almost suck for anyone to date you at all. You need to learn to have fun,"_ Meg groused. _"But see, this is better now. We're friends and when Balthazar pisses me off I can come talk to you and I know you'll listen. You're such a good listener, you're like my only girlfriend."_

Double death.

"What if I tried now?" Castiel asked, he had nothing left to lose at this point. The love of his life had just told him that she had thought he was gay, that he had been too self-absorbed to take his chance with her when he had it, and that he was forever relegated to the friendzone, all in less than five minutes.

"_You're too big of a chicken,"_ Meg teased. _"Plus it would just ruin Balthazar and you love him, so there. Listen, Cas, I need to get going."_

"Yea, yea, go enjoy your glamorous party. I just wanted to clear that up, y'know leave no stone unturned." He hoped it came across like the rejection didn't bother him, like he was only calling her as a last resort, but his voice broke on the last word and an awkward silence hung between them in the dead space airwaves of their phone call.

"_You're okay, right, Cas?"_

"I'm fine," He lied. "Been drinking a little bit, its fine. You know how I get all philosophical and existential when I drink, no big deal."

"_Just don't do anything stupid, I worry about you."_ Meg warned.

_You and everybody else_, he thought ruefully.

"I won't. Bye, Meg." Castiel mouthed 'I love you' into the phone, mostly because no one was around to see it and she couldn't hear it. Meg was totally right about him, he was a complete wuss.

* * *

Author Note: Hey guys, sorry about this update taking so long. I just haven't been feeling it and the last week has been so stressfully busy at work that all I've wanted to do when I get home is sleep. But this is an update and its a long one and I hope that makes up for the wait.

On a more personal note, those of you that have read the actual novel 'It's Kind of a Funny Story' or seen the movie or maybe read one of his other books, might have heard that Ned Vizzini had been battling depression since he was a teenager. His writing has always been right up there with Perks of Being a Wallflower and so many other books that helped me make it through my own hellish teen years in small-town Southern America, but unfortunately he lost his own battle with depression earlier this last week. As sad as it is I hope that his suicide brings more awareness to the fact that depression and bipolar disorder and other mental health problems ARE REAL and people are not just making them up for attention, its a life-long struggle that doesn't just magically go away as you get older. If anyone reading this is struggling with depression because trust me, I know how it can get during the holidays, and needs to talk, I am here to offer a virtual shoulder to cry on.

This fic will continue even though some might consider it sacrilege or bad taste for me to do so, I think that I might be able to add my own interpretation to the struggles of coming out while also having a mental illness and my only hope is that it does justice to Ned Vizzini and his memory.


	13. Chapter 13

Castiel felt numb after his phone call with Meg. Not just like the normal kind of numb- the kind that they talked about in movies that were set in really cold places, like Greenland, or the kind of numb where you were sat in one position for too long and then your foot or your hand fell asleep and when you did finally move it felt all static clingy tingly. He just felt nothing.

Nothing like when he had looked at Crowley and felt nothing. Nothing like when he had watched them lower his mom into the ground and felt nothing. Nothing...like when he had gotten beaten up that one time in highschool, just for being Michael Shurley's little brother and the black vortex of emptiness inside of his head when the jocks had called him worthless and stupid and queer had opened up to swallow him whole and keep him from realizing that he was shrieking until Gabriel had shown up with his friends to stop the whole thing.

The kind of nothing where he didn't even realize that he had gotten off of the floor, walked down the hallway, and crawled into his bed until Charlie was shaking him out of his miserable stupor and telling him it was time for dinner.

"I don't want to go," he told her, pulling the thin hospital covers high up over himself in an effort to block out the dim light that was shining on him from the light to the ensuite bathroom being on. "Just leave me here to die already."

"Oh drama, drama." Charlie sighed, tugging the covers off of him and tossing them across the room out of Castiel's reach. "Listen I heard you had a bad phone call, but its not the end of the world."

"Who told you that?" Castiel asked, sitting up suddenly in the bed and grimacing at the sweat that had soaked through his clothes and his bed sheets and he probably smelled fucking lovely to top it all off.

"Crowley said you called a girl, I assume it was 'the girl' that you were moaning about in the E.R., but hey at least now you know, y'know? Tis better to have loved and lost and all that bullshit." The girl said, waving her hands around in an abstracted kind of way. "Now you'll know the real thing when you see it. Get up, come to dinner. Please, Cas."

"No, no I won't know the real thing," Castiel complained, kicking off his laceless Converse and reaching for the Vans that Kali had brought him that had stayed stacked on the end of his bed along with the clothes that were actually his own that he had been so stupidly excited about earlier. "Meg was the real thing and now I'll never ever know her. I'm going to die alone."

"Are you using the word 'know' in the Biblical sense right now?" Charlie asked, looming near his dresser with her hands on her hips. Castiel noticed that Becky was standing watch for the other girl near the doorway and had clapped a hand over her mouth to try to muffle the giggles that were slipping out. "Because if you are, that's super gross."

"You're super gross," Castiel muttered childishly, clambering to his feet and snatching his shampoo out of Charlie's hand with as much grace as he could muster. "I'm not hungry."

As if on cue, his stomach growled.

_Fucking Judas,_ he thought miserably as Charlie glanced pointedly at his abdomen and smirked triumphantly. _You haven't growled in eight fucking months and you decide to now?_

"Well I don't want fucking grilled cheese and tomato soup," Castiel snapped, grabbing his body wash and his towel before turning back to his bed and picking out a pair of jeans and his old Dinosaur Jr. T-shirt along with his cardigan. He started towards the door, but was caught by Charlie right as he passed Becky who skirted out of his way meekly.

"Where are you going?" She asked, grabbing onto his elbow softly causing Castiel to sigh frustratedly.

"Not that it's any of your business," he groused, motioning with his armful of clothing and hygiene products towards the end of the hallway that had the showers. "But I'm fucking covered in sweat and I would like to spend the rest of my night not feeling like shit. A shower is going to make me feel better."

"You're still meeting Dean, right?" Charlie asked, biting her lip anxiously and fiddling with a strand of her hair that had come loose out of her bun.

Castiel stopped short at that, his heart doing a funny little whinging twist in his chest when he thought of Dean sitting on that stupid fucking bench just watching the clock that was above the cafeteria door and getting more and more disappointed. God, he was going to look like a complete jerk if he stood the other man up for their meeting, especially after it already looked like he couldn't seem to make up his mind about whether or not he even wanted to be Dean's friend. Fucking blushing and stuttering like a half-wit moron one second and then snapping the next, Cas was giving off all the wrong signals if he wanted to actually have a normal friendship with someone. And more than anything he just wanted one good thing to come out of this whole ordeal, Dean more than counted as a good thing.

"Also not your business," Castiel started, feeling grumpy mostly because he was hungry and even grilled cheese sounded not entirely horrible the more he thought about it, but he had already made such a fuss about not going to dinner that he was going to look like a spaz if he changed his mind, plus he really didn't want to gross Dean out with how sweaty he was either.

But then he saw Charlie's hopeful smile start to falter and he felt bad for being mean to her too, no one deserved to be treated badly just because he had gotten almost the exact brush-off that he had expected from Meg; just with the added bonus of her thinking he was gay and her telling him he had had a chance but missed it and fuck everything maybe he would just go sit in the shower for a while and cry.

He just took a deep breath instead and barred his teeth in something that he hoped looked more like a smile instead of a grimace for the other girl. "I'm still going to meet Dean, Charlie. Just...can you give me some privacy?"

"Sure!" Charlie exclaimed, pressing a hand against her chest in relief and tugging on the baggy sleeve of Becky's sweatshirt to get the other girl moving. "Yes, yes. We'll go. Come on, Becky we're going come on before he gets all grouchy again."

"Yea, we can help Dean pick out something to wear," Becky squeaked excitedly, slapping Castiel lightly on the arm before she and Charlie rushed away down the hall towards the nurse's station.

"Shut the fuck up, Becks!" Charlie hissed, glancing back over her shoulder at Castiel and waving at him before they ducked into the day area and out of his sight.

He shrugged and headed towards the showers, taking care to flip the sign so that no one would walk in on him like he was terrified of happening after Dean's introductory warning the day before. It felt like a lifetime ago that he had gotten on the ward, way more than just a day and he wondered how his mom had been able to stand all of that time that she had spent sitting in hospitals while she got chemotherapy or the final languishing weeks that she had been confined to a bed stuck full of tubes and surrounded by beeping machines as the world crept on endlessly around her. Time moved differently here than other places, slower.

Castiel tried not to think too much in the shower, tried not to dwell on the things that Meg had told him that probably everyone fucking thought about him. He tried not to think of what it might mean for him if he just decided to say fuck it and be the person that people apparently already assumed that he was because he couldn't do that. His family had expectations for him and they did not involve him having some belated bout of rebelliousness that he should've indulged in before grad school started looming on the horizon. What would his father say? Fuck, what would Michael say if he just shoved all of those internship applications in Missouri's trash can?

The thought of his brother's reaction made him panicky, made breathing in the thick steamy air of the shower unbearable and too much to handle so Castiel cut his shower short and threw on the new clothes that he had picked out before going to toss the ones that Gabriel had lent him back into his room.

"You should do something with your hair," Rufus mumbled behind him, causing Castiel to startle slightly as he was realigning his soap bottles on his dresser and shoving his dirty clothes in the laundry bag that the overnight orderly, Jim had given him that morning when he had been roaming restlessly around the halls after his shower before other people had started getting up and moving around and he had been scared back into his bedroom.

"What's wrong with my hair?" Castiel asked, moving over to the bathroom so that he could look in the mirror that was there.

He turned his head from side to side, smoothing down the worst of the cowlicks that his hair always stuck up in and sighing in resignation over how pale and horrible he looked all the time no matter what he did. Castiel rubbed a hand over his jaw, wincing at the sharp sting of stubble that was on his cheeks and chin; Jim had told him earlier that morning if he wanted to shave then he had to be watched. It really didn't seem like a big deal when no one else was awake to see him being watched over like a teenager learning to shave by the older, softly spoken tired eyed man, but he was willing to bet that Bobby would be too busy dealing with the aftermath of dinner and the chaos that seemed to follow every meal on the ward to chaperone him with a razor.

"Unless you plan on kissing someone I wouldn't worry about shaving," Rufus grumbled, kicking at the covers around his feet for a moment before turning his back on Castiel who was now blushing furiously and frantically trying to remember if he had made any noises when he had woken up coming in his fucking pajama pants that morning. What if he had said Dean's name? Shit, it was fully fucking possible, it wouldn't be the first time that he had talked in his sleep.

"Why would I be kissing anyone?" Cas asked the other man, trying to keep the hysterical guilt out of his voice because he didn't need it getting back to Dean that he was having dreams about him, normal friends did not have sexy dreams about each other. "This is a hospital, people don't kiss each other in hospitals."

"Boy, have you even met Becky? Or seen Dr. Sexy M.D.? All those people do is lock lips; I was just trying to make you feel better. Excuse my poor attempt at a joke," Rufus snapped over his shoulder, tugging the blanket up over his head in a signal that Castiel took as meaning that the conversation was over.

"I'm sorry Rufus," Castiel said softly, watching as the older man's shoulders made a shrugging motion underneath the blankets and then stilled into the steady rise and fall of the other man's breathing again.

He leaned heavily over the sink, staring at his miserably thin reflection that looked too pale in the fluorescent lighting and the circles that looked too dark under his eyes even though he had gotten a fairly good amount of sleep the night before. Castiel figured that this was probably as good as it was going to get, wrinkled t-shit and too big cardigan and glasses that made him look like a stupid moon-faced owl. He ran a hand over his mouth and debated about whether or not he should brush his teeth before meeting Dean, not that he had eaten anything that would make his breath smell bad as his stomach kept reminding him and that probably fell into the same category as shaving- it just wasn't something that he should be thinking about because he shouldn't be close enough for Dean to care anyway.

God, maybe he wanted to kiss D—No.

"I can't go," he said to his reflection, trying to convince himself that he didn't want to go, that besides calling Meg it hadn't been something that he had been looking forward to all freaking afternoon after Dean first asked him to meet him during lunch.

It was going to be bad if he went, especially now that he didn't have his Meg shaped safety net to fall back on; he was going to do or say something stupid that would weird the other patient out and he would be left with no one to talk to. Because Dean would tell Charlie about his uncomfortable, unreciprocated crush (weren't all of his crushes like that?) and Charlie would tell Becky and Becky would tell Ash until everyone on the ward either felt sorry for him or were making fun of him behind his back. As far as he knew, Dean had no Muriel to save him from how potentially awkward this could all be if he tried to hang out with the other man alone.

"I just can't go, right Rufus?" Castiel asked, turning towards the other man and putting his hand out in attempt to garner some sympathy for his pathetic fucking life. "I mean if I go then I'm going to say something to screw it up, my friendship with Dean. And he's really nice and sweet and I need nice and sweet in my life right now. I just want nice and sweet."

"Probably won't be very nice to you if you stand him up, kid," Rufus replied sounding annoyed at Castiel trying to talk himself out of the one good thing he might experience that day. "Go or don't go, either way just shut the hell up already."

"So I'm gonna go then," Castiel muttered to himself, pushing up the sleeves of his cardigan and taking a deep steadying breath before he left the room, hitting the light for the bathroom and the bedroom on his way out and leaving Rufus in darkness.

He stood in the hallway outside his bedroom door for a second as the full force of what he was about to do almost made him turn around to go give up whatever little bit of his lunch might be left in his stomach to the porcelain gods. This wasn't a date, Dean just had something to give him and fucking Meg might think he was gay, but he liked girls. He fucking liked Meg, so he couldn't be gay; he just appreciated how some men looked more than others, like how everyone: male, female, gay, straight, and in between thought that Ryan Gosling was hot. Dean was just his outlier, his Ryan Gosling and if he couldn't handle being alone with the other man for more than five minutes without molesting him then he didn't deserve to have Dean as his friend in the first place.

Plus according to Charlie, someone else on this ward liked him. Liked him enough to draw him something and so far the only name he had heard that started with an 'M' on the unit was Martin and he just really really hoped it was anyone besides the gaunt looking older man that had been in stress management with him who had drawn him the picture that was still pressed between the pages of his GRE study guide. Because it wasn't Dean and there was no way he should get his hopes up about something that wasn't possible.

Castiel made it all the way to the bench outside of the cafeteria before he realized that his feet had carried him down the hall and past the nurse's station without him noticing. Dean wasn't there yet and a glance at the clock above the cafeteria doors showed that it was about five minutes past seven; maybe the other man had given up and wouldn't that just be the story of his fucking life. He sat down heavily on the wooden bench with his elbows on his knees and glanced down the hallway towards the phone that had effectively ruined all of his hopes and dreams earlier.

Ash was on the phone now, talking to someone and Lilith had dragged one of the hard folding chairs out of the rec room to lurk near him, tapping her foot impatiently on the floor while the other man spoke. No one else was in the hallway and Ellen was sitting at the nurse's station, typing something off of papers with a little frown creasing her forehead as she pecked at the keys of the computer. Castiel looked down at his hands, at his torn, ugly nails and the long fingers that he had always been told by his teachers were piano playing fingers, not that he did that anymore. Dean wasn't coming and Castiel tried to figure out if he was sad for that reason or for the many other things that had gone wrong for him recently, it was kind of hard to pinpoint just one thing.

"Hey," a voice said causing Castiel to look up to see Dean ambling down the hallway towards him from his bedroom with a wide smile on his face. "You showed, had me worried there for a second."

"Yea," Castiel breathed, eyeing the plain black t-shirt that the other man had changed into along with a pair of jeans that looked different from the ones Dean had been wearing earlier, tighter maybe. He cleared his throat awkwardly when he realized that he was staring at how Dean's shoulders and upper arms looked in the form-fitting material of his shirt. "I mean, I had other plans, but y'know I canceled them. So whatever."

It was the first time that he had seen Dean without something covering his arms, besides when the other man had just pushed up his sleeves earlier during group and though there were scars, lots of deep jagged looking scars that continued past Dean's elbow and under the shorter sleeves of his t-shirt; that wasn't what his eyes kept straying to. It was the subtle shift of muscles in Dean's biceps, how his arms flexed almost unconsciously as he sat down next to him on the bench and crossed one of his legs under the other so that he could turn to face Castiel.

Dean grinned at him, settling his hands self-consciously in his lap before he looked up at Castiel under his eyelashes. "I thought I might have scared you off earlier, with the whole group thing. I wanted to give you time to change your mind."

"No," Castiel joked, flushing hot under the other man's scrutiny before he pushed the sleeves of his cardigan up high on his arms. "I mean, its not like Crowley and Dick know what they're talking about anyway, right? You haven't like known them for years or anything."

The other man scoffed slightly, rubbing at the back of his neck for a second before he saw how Castiel was watching the movement and he crossed his arms over his chest. Castiel dropped his eyes to his lap, he really needed to stop staring at Dean obviously it was making him uncomfortable. Why did he have to be so fucking good looking though?

"I've actually been in a hospital with Crowley before," Dean offered softly, frowning to himself for a second before he looked back at Castiel. "Dick too. Kind of a hazard when you're a frequent visitor, you get to know the regulars' dirty secrets. I really should be used to them by now, I just didn't like them talking bad about Charlie, she's a good person, y'know?"

"Yea, uh she kind of reminds me of my sister a bit," Castiel said shyly, wanting to ask what Dean meant about being a frequent visitor, but feeling like it probably crossed that line into sharing more than he wanted to with the other man if he was going to keep himself from becoming too attached. "But...um did I miss anything at dinner?"

"Uh, yea you did." Dean said excitedly, hopping to his feet and rushing down to Ellen where he spoke in low tones with the other woman before she nodded and surreptitiously looked around, handing him something that Dean hid behind his back.

Castiel watched as Dean sauntered back towards him, a smug smile tugging at the corners of his mouth before he whipped a plated piece of apple pie out from behind his back and presented it with the sort of pomp and circumstance usually only reserved for Purple Hearts and the British Crown Jewels. "Pie! Charlie told me that you said you weren't hungry, but that you really were so I asked Ellen if I could save you a piece of pie. It's pretty much the best thing they make here."

"Oh this is awesome, Dean." Castiel blurted, taking the plate from the other man and trying to figure out if it was the most thoughtful gesture anyone had ever made to him or not, he was pretty sure it was at least in the top five. "This couldn't be what you wanted to give me though, right? I mean you couldn't have known at lunch that I was going to skip dinner."

"No, that's not it," Dean mumbled, blushing a faint tinge of pink that Castiel would've missed if he had been following his own damn rules and not fucking staring at the other man. He was fighting a losing battle. "But um...let's play a game for it. If you win you get what I was going to give you and if I win then...um...I dunno, I get your sweater."

"Why do you want my sweater? You have like a million flannels," Castiel asked looking down at his worn, stretched out blue cardigan that he had had for so long that he couldn't even remember where it had come from anymore.

"Because Charlie hid all my flannels from me," Dean explained, trailing the fingers of his right hand absently over the scars on his left forearm before he realized what he was doing. "That's why I was late, I was trying to find them. But I think she hid them in Becky's room and I'm not dumb enough to go in there. My level will get dropped faster than a New Year's resolution in a cupcake shop. Nope, I want yours if I win."

"Okay, fine what's the game?" Castiel conceded taking a small bite of the pie with the fork that had been stuck into the top and making a pleased sound at the back of his throat because damn, it really was good pie.

"Okay, I ask you a question and then you ask me a question." Dean explained.

"Do we answer them?"

The other man shrugged a bit, reaching out a finger to softly touch the cuff of Castiel's sweater. "It's up to you, if you answer then you can't lie. You have to tell the truth, but the game is you always have to finish with a question. Whoever doesn't or gives up loses. Okay, are you ready?"

"Yea," Castiel said quickly, swallowing the last bite of his pie and even though he was wishing that there had been more because he was still kinda hungry he also really really wanted to win whatever it was that Dean was going to give him. His mind raced with what it could be, all kinds of fantastical and impossible things that made his heart leap into his throat in terrified anticipation and made him lick his lips unconsciously.

Dean smirked at him, rolling his eyes a bit and nudging his knee against Castiel's. "Your question?"

"Oh shit," Castiel muttered, running an agitated hand through his hair. "Did I just fucking lose already?"

"No," the other man laughed, smiling widely at how flustered Castiel was. Well, at least one of them was enjoying his brainlessness. "I'll give you that one since you're learning how to play. We'll start over, are you ready now?"

"Uh...yes," Castiel stated firmly, adjusting himself on the bench so that both of his legs were crossed on the wood between him and the other man. He tried very hard to focus on thinking of a good question instead of how his knees were now pressing into Dean's thigh. "Where did you learn this game?"

"From this chick at another hospital, long time ago; she was really cool." Dean answered, thrumming his fingers softly against his thigh for a second. "Umm...what's your middle name?"

"Well, its not fucking Jeremiah." Castiel muttered bitterly, remembering how Meg had called him that earlier. She knew his middle name, he had told her a million times what it was and she had shown off his horribly embarrassing student ID picture enough that it should be ingrained in her memory like her middle name was for him. It was Gwendolyn by the way.

"I feel like there's a story there," Dean mused teasingly.

"It's Alexander. Like the great, my mom was a bit of a history buff, it saved my dad a lot of research I don't know how many times. What's yours?"

"So your initials are C.A.S., like your name Cas. That's a cute trick, wish my parents had done something like that. Mine's boring, it's just Henry after my granddad." Dean explained with a shrug, propping one arm up on the back of the bench and stretching the other out to his side.

Castiel's eyes followed the movement, his mouth going dry when Dean's shirt pulled tight across his chest and he had to look down at his hands for a second so that he could compose himself. Maybe he should just give up on trying to get whatever it was that Dean had for him, he wasn't going to win the game and spending time alone with the other man was just making it harder to deal with this crush or whatever it was that was going on with him.

"Do you think I'm gross looking?" Dean asked suddenly. Castiel's eyes shot back up to the other man's face and found the Dean doing that nervous, contemplative lip biting that was going to make his head explode, he was pretty sure of it.

"No," he said quickly, shaking his head hard enough that his glasses rattled on his face a bit causing Dean to smile shyly and look down at his arms, at the scars that were on his arms. "I think you look..."

Fuck, amazing? That sounded like the kind of compliment that you gave a girl who had just spent a lot of money on a dress for a date with you. Like a prom compliment. Gorgeous? Dean wasn't a model, but he could be; fully, but there was no way in hell that he could say that and still hold on to the thin thread of himself that wasn't a complete stranger. So he settled for something stupid, something that made Dean sound like Cas thought he was a piece of pie.

"Awesome." Castiel finished lamely, his shoulders slumping inwards like he was preparing for the blows or the yelling that he knew was about to come. You just didn't tell another guy that you thought they were awesome looking and walk away unscathed, it just didn't happen. "Why do you ask?"

Dean was blushing for real now, all the way to the tips of his ears and he wasn't looking at Castiel. This was bad, he should just make an excuse and leave because this was when things got weird and really he had thought he would have longer, but his stupid mouth had decided to ruin any chance of a friendship with Dean in about fifteen seconds. He should staple his lips together or take a vow of silence or something, anything that might give him a chance to actually think before he spoke every once in a while.

"You just um...you keep looking at my scars and I thought they might be grossing you out," Dean explained softly, staring down at his hands in his lap with a little smirk twitching at the corners of his mouth. "I just know you have a sensitive stomach and...do you really think that, Cas?"

This was his out, he couldn't lie or anything, but he could choose not to answer. And like the fucking coward that he was, that's what Castiel did. "Why did you ask me here and not anyone else, Dean?"

"Because I wanted to get to know more about you, you seem like a really nice guy." The other patient said, rubbing a hand over his jaw which was smoothly shaven now that Castiel was looking at the way Dean's neck curved down to his shoulders. Distracting fucking shoulders. "Don't you think this is a good way to get to know someone?"

"Yea, its a really good game," Cas answered, swallowing hard and rubbing at one of his eyes that was itching underneath his glasses. "So um...do you live in Brooklyn? I'm over in DUMBO."

"Oh, I'm in Bushwick." Dean said excitedly, slapping lightly at Castiel's knee. "That's not very far and I think Charlie said the halfway house that she's trying to get in to is in Bedford so we'd all be kind of close to each other if she gets in. We should all hang out or something outside of here, what do you think?"

"Bushwick? I don't really go to Bushwick," Castiel started softly, rubbing his suddenly sweaty palms on his thighs and hoping that it would stop soon before it spread to his face and his back and he had to take another shower just to be able to try to sleep later. Plus it would be gross and the fact that his mom's old, untouched art studio was in Bushwick should not fucking freak him out so much. "But um...maybe something in Williamsburg or like um...Coney Island or something. That would be cool right? Once the semester is over. What would you want to do?"

Dean was staring at him with a silly grin on his face and he reached out a hand absently towards Castiel's face, stopping once he realized was he was doing and biting his lip self-consciously.

"I'm sorry, Cas. I didn't hear a word of that, its just...well you have an eyelash on your...here be still." Dean leaned in as he spoke, steadying himself as he did so with one hand settled firmly on Castiel's knee.

Castiel couldn't decide which was worse, the way that his heart sped up when he felt the firm, sure grip that the other man had on his leg as he leaned some of his weight onto Castiel's knee or the way he couldn't seem to remember how to breathe for the couple of seconds that he felt Dean's fingers brushing against his cheekbones, bumping softly and carefully into his glasses before the other man sat back, smiling with his hand outstretched still to show Cas the precariously balanced eyelash that was sitting on his index finger. They were both bad, this was very very bad. Christ on a cross he didn't think he had ever been more turned on in his life, not even by Meg.

"Make a wish, Cas." Dean said quietly, keeping his breaths shallow so that he wouldn't blow the eyelash off his fingertip on accident.

He had wanted to be close enough to count the freckles on the other man's face, but even though he was now numbers and all of those upper level accounting classes that he had slaved over seemed to have completely fucking abandoned him. Castiel couldn't take his eyes off of Dean's, not until he shut them at least and wished that it could always be this easy to interact with someone; that this whatever with Dean could be something real and reciprocated and uncomplicated by things like family and his fucked up head.

And then he blew out a puff of air and when he opened his eyes again the eyelash was gone and Dean was still staring at him, at his lips that Castiel had pursed together to blow the fallen lash off of the other man's finger to be more exact. He glanced down at his lap and cursed his stupid, uncontrollable fucking body for making him hard right now. Cas drew in a shaky breath and tried to will away his erection, but it just throbbed harder in the tight confines of his jeans when Dean's hand didn't move off of his knee immediately, it just fucking stayed there like Dean actually wanted to touch him. He was reading entirely too much into all of this.

"So um...is it your turn or mine?" Dean asked lowly, tugging on the front of his shirt when he finally sat back and took his hand off of Cas's knee.

The spot where it had been felt warm and tingly and like it wasn't really attached to him anymore, it felt like his shoulder had felt when Dean's fingers had settled on it unconsciously during movie night the day before. Just like then, he knew that the other man couldn't possibly know what it was doing to him to just be touched by another person who he apparently liked much more than he should. Shitshitshit.

"I have no idea," Castiel croaked out, clearing his throat when his voice broke embarrassingly just a little as he spoke. "So...who wins?"

"No one, I guess." Dean replied with a sheepish shrug, fuck why was he still blushing and biting his lip and looking adorable? Cas just wanted to die already because his life really was so much more complicated than he had thought it was. "I'm sorry, I just got a bit distracted by um...the eyelash and all. It just...fuck I'm such a loser."

"Well if no one wins, then we're both losers." He said softly, fighting the urge he had to do something drastic so that Dean would start smiling that big, dazzling smile again. "Sucks though, I really wanted whatever it was you had for me."

"Dude, I know and I really wanted that sweater," Dean laughed, reaching out to touch Castiel's cardigan again this time on a spot that was closer to his neck. Close enough that Castiel could feel the heat from Dean's skin against his own and he had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep himself from leaning into it so that he could feel the other man's skin against his again. "It looks really comfy and it's soft. I like the color a lot."

"You can still have it if you want," Cas offered suddenly, surprising even himself with how easily the words slipped out of his mouth, but it did the trick of making Dean smile wider; he had such great fucking lips.

"No, no," Dean said quickly, his eyes widening in surprise when Castiel started tugging it off of his arms with movements that he hoped didn't look too eager to please. "I wouldn't feel right taking it since I didn't win the game."

"Well..." Castiel said, folding his stripped cardigan over in half in his lap and resting his hands lightly on top as he thought about what Dean could give him to make the exchange fair. "Um...give me whatever it was you had for me and we'll call it even."

"Mine's stupid, Cas."

"Well I still want it," he said firmly, glancing meaningfully down at his sweater and raising an eyebrow at Dean in a way that almost felt like flirting. Cas was really going to have to keep that in check, the other man was making this too easy; it almost felt like he was taking advantage of Dean and that made his stomach clench in disgust at himself. "Do we have a deal or what?"

Dean looked down at the sweater, reached out to touch it again his fingers so maddeningly close to Castiel's that he wanted to cry before the other man looked at Castiel again and licked his lips nervously. "Okay, but shut your eyes."

"Why?" Castiel asked, holding the sweater out to Dean who took it like it was the Shroud of Turin or some other holy relic that he was honored to have. "What are you going to do?"

"I just...I'm going to give you your present and I want you to close your eyes and count to um...fifty before you look at it okay?" Dean asked, reaching one of his hands behind himself again towards the back pockets of his jeans before stopping and looking at Castiel pleadingly until he nodded and shut his eyes.

"Like this?"

"Just like that, Cas. Now don't open your eyes, fifty. Don't skip any numbers or anything."

Castiel smirked to himself because that had been exactly his plan, but kept his eyes shut even when he felt Dean's thigh move away from his knees on the bench between them. "So I can count really fast then?"

"You would you little fucking shit," Dean muttered and Castiel would've been worried if he hadn't been able to hear the smile in the other man's voice when he said it. "Just count, Cas."

"Onetwothreefourfive," Castiel started, counting softly under his breath as quickly as he could until he reached fifty and opened his eyes.

Dean was gone. When Castiel looked around himself he saw no trace of the other man and he couldn't stop himself from feeling slightly disappointed about Dean ditching him, but when he started to drop his gaze down to look down at his fingers that had twisted themselves into knots as he counted he saw the paper sitting in the spot that Dean had just been occupying. It was a folded white sheet, pressed into half it's normal size with almost immaculate precision and when Castiel reached out to pick it up, his hand was shaking so hard that he had to steady it with the other one just so he wouldn't accidentally bend the paper before he got to see what it was.

He almost fell off the bench when he did finally get his hands back under control long enough to flip the page open and that was only because Cas thought he was going to black out since there was suddenly no air in any area of the hospital, maybe inside those oxygen canisters, but since he didn't have one then he was going to die. Castiel was going to die and this was what he had wanted so why was he freaking out over the feeling of clutching, tearing narrowness that always accompanied his panic attacks?

Cas felt like his vision had shrunken to a tight, wind savaged tunnel that was steadily growing smaller and smaller until he managed to suck in a deep breath that made the tunnel expand suddenly into terrifying high definition color. His eyes scanned over the paper, to the words written at the top of the page and the signature scrawled messily at the bottom; they spent an inordinately long time studying the image centered in the middle of the page.

Traveling over the swooping, thick pencil lines that made up the frames of the glasses that matched his own, forced into 3-D perspective on the flat surface of the page; widening at the detailed stippled reflection on the lenses and the faint barely there shadow that lay underneath as if a light was shining mostly above the unfolded heavy, dark framed spectacles.

At the top of the page was a single sentence, "Sorry I didn't sign the first one." At the bottom, there it was; the D.W. that he had thought he had seen that morning in Missouri's office on the portrait that had been done of the therapist. The two letters that had to be a joke because even though the drawing was done in the same style as the one that he already had and the one that the doctor had, it couldn't possibly have actually been done by Dean. It was the only way to explain it and he felt so so stupid for allowing himself to be comfortable around Dean, enough to let his guard down and be carefree and happy for probably the first time in...longer than he could remember.

This was all a big joke, it had to be. And even though Castiel felt like crying and raging and hunting Dean down so that he could demand his sweater back, another part of him decided that he deserved this. Because the only thing he deserved was to be miserable, he was a horrible friend and a horrible son and just like this fucking drawing, his life was a big fucking joke.

* * *

Author Note: Why did I do this? Ugh. I'm sorry, okay. I'm going to write the next chapter as soon as possible so you know I'm not a sadistic angst freak. I promise, just breathe; it'll be okay.


	14. Chapter 14

A few tears did manage to slip out, the self-hatred that he had for himself just being too overwhelming for them not to spill hot and heavy over his cheeks and onto the paper that was rattling softly in his trembling hands before he tossed it back down where Dean had been sitting and wiped agitatedly at his face. This was a mean joke, meaner than any April fool's joke that Gabriel had ever played on him and so much meaner than anything he had ever called himself-stupid, worthless, a failure, invisible, forgotten.

It just didn't make any sense, either Dean was a very very good actor who got off on making people fall all over themselves for him, just like Balthazar, or literally everyone he had thought he was getting along with on the ward had been playing a cruel joke on him since he had first stepped foot into the hospital. Charlie and Becky and everyone had just been conspiring to make him look foolish and how he reacted to Dean must have been obvious since that first tour otherwise how could he explain the first drawing?

The one in Missouri's office was still a mystery, but it was probably done by the actual person 'M.W.' and his new friends had gotten them to draw things that they could pass off as being from a secret admirer, fuck it probably _was_ creepy, sour-faced Martin who had done them after all. He deserved this though, for making Dean uncomfortable just like he had Alfie and for being mean to Charlie and for being so envious of his siblings' success and for not crying at his mom's funeral. He was a terrible person who deserved to have terrible things happen to him and dying was too merciful for someone like him.

That's why, even though he was trying to be mad at the people he should be mad at (Charlie, Becky...Dean), he couldn't seem to muster up any other emotions besides embarrassment and hopelessness. He felt so very foolish for letting himself think that maybe Dean could actually like him back, that maybe he wasn't so inept and beaten down by life itself and someone could see that all he wanted was to be wanted by someone in return. And god, he had just been to the point where if someone as great as the other man wanted him, then it didn't even matter that Dean was a boy and not a girl at all.

That was a lie, it still mattered.

But maybe while he was here in the hospital away from his family and friends that would judge him for it, he could have seen himself being happy indulging in Dean's company. In reveling in the soft smiles and the quick laughter of the handsome patient who would obviously never ever in a million years want him, just like Meg. It didn't have to mean anything, because it didn't mean anything with Meg and he had been dealing with that up until now, but it would've made getting through this more bearable. But now what did he have? Nothing, no friends and no family and no one who thought that he was anything.

Cas let out a broken, unintended sob and buried his face in his hands to muffle the noise. He didn't want Dean or Charlie hearing how miserable he was over their joke, they were probably laughing at him right now and Gabe had always told him not to give bullies the satisfaction of knowing they had gotten to him. But fucking shit, they had gotten to him. He had thought that it was Crowley and Dick or Ruby and Lilith that he had to watch out for; he thought by now he would know when someone was just using him, but well wasn't there some saying about it always being the quiet ones or something?

The tears raced then, when his face was hidden and no one could see him crying like a little boy who had fallen down and skinned his knee. Only these weren't crocodile tears meant to get consoling kisses and murmured platitudes from his mom or dad, they fucking hurt. Like acid burning that ran in stinging rivulets down his chin until they dripped onto the denim of his jeans and he pulled his knees up to his chest because it felt like he was going to collapse into himself from how much this hurt.

He just wanted this whole hospital mistake to be over with, so he could go home and bury himself in homework again. While away the rest of his days alone with his numbers and his books and his miserable little existence; if he got back on the medication then he could deal with it, the emptiness. Because if this was what having feelings again meant then he hadn't been missing much and he was more than happy to go back to being numb and alone as long as his heart didn't feel like it had been ripped out and stomped on by every person who might mean something to him.

_I won't kill myself,_ he promised. God? Cas didn't know, just whoever it was that might be watching over him. _If you make this stop, I will just go on. Like I was before, I'll be useful and insignificant and content with being nothing. Just make this stop, please make this stop._

"Well, balls. What's wrong with you?"

Castiel looked up, squinting through the tear-streaked lenses of his glasses at Bobby who was standing in front of the bench with his hands on his hips. He sniffled and wiped at his nose, not remembering that his cardigan had traveled off with someone who he didn't want to think about until he felt the mucus against his forearm and grimaced apologetically at the older man for being so gross. He knew the exact instant that the nurse realized that he had been crying because Bobby cursed under his breath again and made to plop down next to him on the bench, right on top of the drawing that Cas knew he shouldn't give a shit about.

So why did he?

"Wait," he forced out, his throat feeling raw and abused even though he hadn't been sobbing, had in fact been trying desperately not to make any noise at all while he cried. "Let me get that first."

Cas picked up the drawing of his glasses, his stomach clenching guiltily when he saw that the tears he had shed on the page had caused smeared discolorations on the sentence that Dean had written at the top of the page. He set his knees back down on the bench and settled the drawing in his lap, tracing over the lines as Bobby sat down gingerly beside him and took off the trucker hat that he was wearing.

"So what's wrong with you, kid?" The nurse asked, scrubbing a hand through his hair before he rooted around in the pocket of his over shirt and produced a package of Kleenex that he offered Castiel.

"Nothing," he mumbled, taking two Kleenex; using one to clean his glasses and the other to surreptitiously wipe the last of the tears off of his face.

Bobby sighed and leaned back on the bench, settling his hat back onto his head and stretching out his legs in front of him. "Don't lie to me, Castiel. I've already dealt with a food fight, three almost breakdowns, and two patients who don't know how to keep their hands to themselves. I'm tired, I'm hungry, and I'm a just a little bit grumpy; so you can talk to me if you want, but don't insult my intelligence. You're obviously upset about something, might as well tell me because Jim will just preach at you and Hester with give you meds to put you to sleep just so she doesn't have to deal with you."

Castiel remained silent, how was he supposed to talk about this? He never had before, not with his family or his friends or anyone because he didn't know half the time what _this_ was. So he had liked Dean, like more than just as a friend and he had gotten his hopes up, gotten lost in his head like he used to do when he was messing around on the piano and something great ended up coming out on accident.

Maybe he had hoped that Dean would save him, from himself and from being invisible, but if the scars on the other man's arms were anything to go by then Dean couldn't even save himself let alone anyone else. That probably should have been his first tip off that something wasn't right about this whole situation. No one with that much damage of their own could possibly be as nice as Dean had seemed to be.

"It got something to do with this?" Bobby asked, tapping his finger on the drawing that Castiel hadn't even realized he was staring at until the older man's finger appeared over the word 'Sorry'.

He glanced up at the nurse who was watching him with a calculating expression on his face and shrugged before dropping his eyes back to the drawing. Fuck, he should have shaken his head.

"Y'know," Bobby started, clearing his throat in a meaningful kind of way causing Castiel to look up at the older man. "I know Dean can come across as a bit of a jackass sometimes, but his heart's in the right place."

"I'm not upset about Dean," Castiel lied, shifting his feet down to the floor and briskly folding the drawing up neatly along the crease that had already been put into the paper.

He should want to rip it up, but he didn't because someone had spent time on it and his mom had taught him to respect art in all its forms. So he was going to keep it at least long enough to ask Martin if he wanted it back, if he didn't well, he didn't know what he would do with it, but Cas couldn't keep it for himself now. He had enough possessions with painful memories attached to them; he didn't need to be a hoarder on top of depressed too.

"Okay then," the nurse said, putting his hands on his knees and making like he was about to get to his feet. "Well, if you decide to stop lying to me I'll be here tomorrow after lunch for my shift. Or y'know your therapist, she's the expert."

"And if I am upset about Dean?" Castiel asked desperately, looking down at the paper that crinkled alarmingly in his hands as they clenched convulsively in his lap. "What in the hell do you suggest I do about it?"

"If you had asked me the first time that he was here," Bobby started, smiling down at his hands as he remembered his early encounters with Dean, when the teen ward had been under construction and the then fifteen year old's brashness had gotten on his damn nerves. "I would've said pop him one in the mouth and then you'd be square, but now...talk to him. If he's coming on too strong, then I'm sure the last thing he wants to do is make you uncomfortable, so he'll stop. Just tell him."

Castiel could feel the hysterical laughter burbling up in his chest in response to the older man's advice. He was pretty sure that the whole point of Dean's cruel joke was to make him uncomfortable, but Cas managed to tamp it down by biting on his lip and nodding his thanks for Bobby's completely unhelpful words of wisdom.

"Okay?' Bobby asked, slapping Castiel lightly on the back before climbing stiffly to his feet with a soft groan. "Damn I'm getting old. Come on, off to bed with you."

He followed the older man towards the nurse's station, mostly because he had absolutely no desire to walk past Dean and Charlie's room again, only to be stopped by Ellen who shoved one of the daily menus brusquely across the counter towards him with a look that brought to mind every disapproving look his mom had ever given him when he had been too busy playing the keyboard with his headphones on to clean his room or take out the trash. So he blindly circled a couple of things on the list and gave it back to her right as Jim and Hester key carded their way through the door with sleepy sounding greetings towards the other two nurses.

"Why is he still up?" Hester asked, jutting her chin at Castiel like he wasn't right there and she couldn't just ask him herself.

"Kid's having a rough night," Bobby explained, not looking up from the clipboard that he was scratching notes on. "Fili and Kili are still up down there too, Crowley's ticked that he's on an arms length restriction now, Becky again. But I think that's about it as far as your night owls go."

"So four or five?" Jim sighed, setting down a battered backpack behind the desk and looking over Bobby's shoulder at the clipboard. "Four."

"Yep and Cas is right off to bed, aren't you boy?" Bobby asked, raising an eyebrow in his direction.

Castiel nodded and started trailing down the hallway, glancing into Crowley's room as he passed to see the other man sitting angrily on the floor right inside his bedroom door. When he saw Cas looking at him he smiled, waggling his eyebrows mischievously.

"I'm not going to sleep until I talk to my doctor!" Crowley hollered, angling his face towards the nurse's station. "This is utter bollocks! You cannot deny a man his right to fornicate!"

He shook his head and walked faster towards his bedroom, ducking inside just as he heard Hester's snappish voice reprimanding the other man, telling him that he had already talked to his doctor and this was what Missouri wanted so he just needed to be quiet already. Cas wondered who else was up right now, Kili and Fili? They sounded like familiar names, but he wasn't sure from where so he just moved to pick up his GRE study guide instead, sliding the new drawing in with the first one before settling down on his bed and flipping the heavy book open to a random page.

If he studied then he could start building back up the wall that he hadn't even realized was compromised until he had let the strangers in this hospital slip past his defenses. Cas couldn't let it happen again, wouldn't and he didn't plan on talking to Dean because he was pretty sure it would end with his crying again. So that left him with his family once he got out, now that he had ruined things with Meg who was bound to tell his roommate about his awkward pseudo-confession of love, his family that was too busy and too important to worry about him pretty much ever; they wouldn't ask about why he was so quiet now, why he didn't have a girlfriend because they never had asked before. They wouldn't ask if his heart was still broken, because he didn't plan on telling them that it ever had been in the first place.

He knew it was a dream this time, because his mom was there and while he was lucid enough to enjoy spending time with her, he couldn't control much else going on around him.

It was a sort of memory, one from after they knew that she was sick and after she had shaved off all of her grey-streaked blonde hair to donate it to Locks of Love, saying that she might as well since it was going to get all brittle and fall out anyway from the chemotherapy. Anna had wanted to shave her head too in solidarity, but her dance instructor had threatened to take the lead in the fall ballet pageant away from her if she did and that had been enough to end that little heartfelt gesture.

She was humming an old Brue Springsteen song under her breath as she made breakfast, they had both always been the early risers in the family and it made for a lot of one on one time for him and his mom. It gave her plenty of time to gently berate him for comparing himself to his siblings all the time, saying that he wasn't Michael or Gabriel and they had different talents than he did so he shouldn't force something that wasn't there.

"That goes for that girl too," His mom warned, sliding chocolate chip pancakes in front of him. "She's just using you, dear. That's why she lets you pay for things all the time and did you know she put your brother down as a reference for a job? Michael was fit to burst."

This hadn't been part of the original memory, but the reference part was true.

"Why would Meg do that?" Castiel asked, digging into the pancakes that were as good in his dream as he remembered, just the right about of melty chocolate that didn't overwhelm him with sweetness. "She gets bored listening to me talk about accounting; never in a million years would she want to work for a hedge fund."

He smiled at the outlandish neon green headscarf that she was wearing, it had been her favorite for a reason that none of them could understand. This was a good dream, after the hell his day had been he deserved to have a good dream.

"Either way, you're much better off now," His mom mused setting a third plate at the table with them, causing Castiel to frown at the extra chocolately pancakes. His dad liked plain pancakes and the writer was the only one likely to be up this early as well. "Such a nice boy and sweet. So sweet, Castiel. Really, you could do much worse."

"What the hell are you talking about, mom?" Cas mumbled out around a mouth full of breakfast food, jumping in the mismatched wooden chair that he was sitting in at in his parent's kitchen in SoHo when he felt a pair of arms wrap around his shoulders and chest. Lips pressed softly into his hair as he tried to turn his head to look at who was behind him.

"You're right, Mrs. Shurley." Dean said, grinning as he took the empty seat and started digging into the obnoxious looking pancakes that must have been his. "Meg was so much worse.'

"Mom, what the fuck is he doing here?" Castiel asked, sounding slightly panicked when his stomach twisted at the sight of the other man, threatening to make him lose his subconscious pancakes.

"He's here because you want him here, sweetie." Amelia Shurley said off-handedly, patting Dean's arm affectionately when the other man just grinned at her, cheeks puffed out and full of food.

"I don't want him here!" he exclaimed, pushing back from the table hard enough that his chair clattered over behind him onto the wooden floor. "He-he, you don't know what he did! Mom, he is not a nice person."

"Sure I am, Cas." Dean argued, dipping a tea bag into a mug of hot water before pushing it towards Castiel. "I'm pretty much the nicest person you've ever met, plus you think I'm really handsome."

"I do not!"

"Uh, yea you do," the other man scoffed, rolling his eyes at Castiel's mom who was just smirking back and forth at the two of them like they were the cutest things in the world. "I'm in your head, Cas. _You_ made me up, _you _put me here, and _you_ think I have a great butt."

"If I made you up, well then I can make you leave," Cas said triumphantly, pointing a stern finger at the other man and shutting his eyes hard, willing Dean out of his head and out of his memory/dream with his mom.

"Isn't he cute when he does that?" his mom said, causing her son to open his eyes to see the older woman nudging Dean in the side. "He used to make that same scrunched up face when he played the piano. Oooh, wait I have pictures, don't go anywhere!"

His mom dashed away from the table, headscarf flapping around her shoulders as she raced out of the room much faster than a woman with stomach cancer could have realistically done if this wasn't a dream.

"Mom, no!" Castiel pleaded, giving Dean a dirty look before he picked up his chair and plopped back down in it, folding his arms on the table to bury his face there with a groan. "This isn't fair, this is my dream and you shouldn't be here."

"Then why am I here, Cas?" Dean asked and Castiel felt the lukewarm tea mug nudging at his fingertips, but didn't look up.

"Because you ruined my fucking day with your spiteful fucking joke and I was mad when I went to sleep."

"No, you weren't mad when you went to sleep," he heard the other man reply softly and even though he didn't want to, he peeked out of the space between his arms to see Dean staring at his half eaten pancakes with a miserable expression on his face. "You were sad, really sad, Cas. I'm sorry, really. I never meant to make you sad."

"Liar," Castiel muttered half-heartedly. "I really hate you, y'know?"

Dean smirked sadly, glancing up to meet his eyes in the small space where Castiel was peeking out. Only in a dream would he know exactly where to look. "No you don't, Cas. I'm in your head remember? You don't hate me at all. You lo—

"Rise and shine!" Ash yelled into his room, causing Castiel's eyes to fly open and for him to startle out of the puddle of drool that had formed on his study guide where he had fallen asleep on it.

He knew he had been dreaming, could remember a vague image of a green scarf and the taste of chocolate, but the rest was slipping away from him; like water carried in someone's cupped hands, the more careful you are not to lose any of it the faster it seems to disappear between the cracks and crevices of your fingers. There had been something about pictures, embarrassing ones?

Ones of him wearing one of Anna's dress up dresses and a plastic tiara as he played that tale as old as time teapot song from _Beauty and the Beast_ for his sister so that she could practice her dancing, his face scrunched up in concentration while his mom had laughed and sung the words. He had probably been about eight, Anna four almost five in her tiny tiny tutu. Why had he been dreaming about that? His mom had been threatening to show those pictures to a girl if he ever brought one home, along with the one of him and Gabe and Mike all in the bathtub together; Gabe had been eating soap, Mike had looked thoroughly disgusted with the whole setup, and Castiel had probably been about two, newly adopted and inexplicably bald.

"Dude, Charlie's threatening to eat your food," Ash warned glancing down the hallway towards the rec room and frowning. "She says she wants waffles instead of cereal and apparently you're the only one of us in a wafflely mood."

"Charlie can go fuck herself," Castiel muttered, side-eyeing the way that Ash frowned in confusion at his pronouncement. "I'm done with her, Ash. Becky and Dean too, I just want to be left alone from now on so you can tell them all to just stop trying to 'help' me."

"Well shit," the other patient exclaimed, throwing his arms out to his sides in frustration and taking a step into Castiel's room. "I know I was fucking out of it for most of the day yesterday, my fault I realize that, but what did I miss? I thought things with you and Dean were good, he was going to ask you on a date or something."

"So you knew about all of this?" he asked angrily, closing the drawer on his dresser that he had opened to look for some new clothes to wear with a little more force than was strictly necessary.

"Unless you're breakfast," Rufus snapped, sitting up suddenly in his bed with an agitated growl at the two younger men. "And you're not because neither one of you fucktards look like a bowl of grits to me, then take your little heart to heart out of here. Go on now! Jesus, I miss when my roommate was a psychopath, at least Alastair was quiet."

Ash waved Castiel out of the room, grabbing onto the sleeve of his shirt that he had been wearing since meeting Dean the night before once he got close enough and dragging him down the hall towards the nurse's station.

"Cas, I knew he was going to ask you to meet him and he was all nervous about it. Asked for my advice about it, y'know since I'm so good with the ladies and stuff and Charlie has like worse anxiety about that that shit than he does. Plus Becky's advice when it comes to that sort of thing is utter crap, girl thinks a person doesn't really like you unless you go down on them or whatever. Now, I like a blow job, Cas, a much as the next guy, but that girl's mouth has been in places I don't even want to think about. Unholy places."

Castiel put up his hand to stop Ash, apparently spending most of the day before zonked out of his mind had left the other patient full of energy because he was talking almost too fast to understand, but Cas got the just of it. Ash had been part of the whole joke that Dean and Charlie had played on him, maybe unknowingly because Ash was always a bit spaced out anyway, but he had been pulled into all of this too and now just looking at him was making Cas want to cry again.

"That's enough," he said, tugging on the front of his shirt to try to straighten out the even more wrinkles that he had put into it by sleeping in it. "I think I get it. I'm sorry they dragged you into this, Ash, but its done. I'm not here to make friends, I'm here because...well, I'm here and I need to work on getting out and getting my life back together. I don't have time for all of the silly fucking games they like to play with people's feelings, so if you'll tell Charlie and Dean and Becky that I want them to leave me alone, I'd really appreciate it."

"Dude, are you serious?" Ash asked, fidgeting with the Velcro on his leather motorcycle gloves agitatedly. "I didn't think you would be like this. I thought that Dean would y'know...that you would _get _him. We all kind of did."

"Oh I get him alright," Castiel sighed, ignoring the prickling behind his eyes when the thought passed through his head that maybe part of the problem was that he had been hoping that Dean would get him too, because it kind of had already felt like the man understood the things he was always trying to say, but couldn't get across in a language that anyone else spoke. He had thought that Dean spoke his language; like Anna spoke their secret, made up language when they were kids. "I understand exactly what kind of person Dean is now and I'm tired of being made fun of all the time by people like him so just tell him for me okay?"

"Cas, I really think you should talk to him," Ash objected, following him when he started towards the cafeteria. All he had eaten yesterday was a breakfast burrito and a burger and the most thoughtful pie he had ever had ever, so he was pretty ready for waffles if that's what was waiting for him. "Talk to Charlie at least, bro. She's better at like, words and stuff than I am. You shouldn't stop being his friend, it would just...be bad. Fuck, talk to Charlie!"

"If I talk to her will you mellow the hell out?" Castiel asked, stopping in the doorway of the cafeteria when Jo paused in her passing out of cafeteria trays to give him a strange look.

He glanced nervously around the room to see Charlie already sitting at a table with Becky, the two girls perking up in their seats when they noticed him and Ash and waving at the two of them eagerly. No Dean, just like yesterday morning, so maybe he was with Missouri again. Maybe it would give him a chance to tell Charlie that he knew about her whole unfunny, twisted joke before he went to sit at the same table with Pam who was all alone across the cafeteria. The older woman seemed to like talking to herself more than anyone else so he could probably get away with not looking like a jerk if he didn't speak to her.

"I just need my meds, dude." Ash drawled cracking his knuckles and moving towards their usual table. "Yesterday fucked me up, no more giving pills away, I don't care how hot Ruby is."

Castiel reluctantly followed behind Ash, taking his usual seat across from Charlie and accepting his tray from Jo when she offered it to him over his shoulder. The redhead was practically bouncing in her seat with excitement, smiling at him widely and looking confusedly at the clothes that he was wearing for a second before shrugging.

"So?" she asked, like it was nothing. Like he shouldn't care that she had completely taken advantage of his confusing feelings about Dean and made him into the butt of her joke.

"So, what?" Cas snapped, he could feel himself shaking. From anger at her pretending like nothing was wrong and looking so happy or from the nervousness he felt about confronting her he wasn't exactly sure, probably both.

He didn't handle confrontation very well, that's why he had always been content to hide behind Gabe and his brother's friends when someone had tried to pick on him. Maybe it was why he was so sickeningly sad about all of this, because it was so familiar and so routine that he was surprised that he had let himself be sucked into another prank. In high school, during the two years that spanned between Gabriel graduating and Castiel leaving the crumbling old brick public school too, the pranks and jokes and teasing had been endless.

The only thing that had helped him through it then was the crappy little garage band he played the keyboard in, but his senior year he had become so obsessed with the SAT that even that had stopped being an outlet when his friend's replaced him with someone who could actually make it to practices. And by the middle of freshman year in college, the instrument had become more of a place to hang clothes than anything that he could use to express the anger and loneliness he felt almost constantly when another person recognized him for being Carver Edlund's son or Gabriel and Michael Shurley's little brother. In a couple more years, he would be in the middle of his older brothers and Anna, squashed into nothingness by his own mediocrity for the rest of his life and he didn't think that he deserved to be punished any more by other people than life was already punishing him.

"Sooooo how did last night go?" Charlie asked rolling her eyes exaggeratedly and stabbing viciously at her bowl of Cheerios.

"I'm sure you already know," he replied emotionlessly, the only way he would get through this would be by forcing himself to be numb. Even though his chest was already aching from just thinking about Dean and he was already sweating because this was really the last thing he wanted to be talking about.

"Okay, yea." The girl agreed, smiling at him widely. "I know Dean's side of it, but I want to hear your side. Quick before he gets back and we have to deal with you two eye fucking all over the table in front of us."

Castiel winced, immediately hating himself even more for doing so. "There won't be any eye fucking Charlie and I'm going to switch tables before Dean gets here. I don't want be around you or him anymore."

"What? Why?" Charlie asked, dropping her spoon into her bowl with a loud clattering sound as she frowned worriedly at him. "Did you change your mind? What happened?"

"I just don't think it's funny to play with another person's feelings, Charlie." Castiel explained trying to be as calm as he possibly could, even though his hands were shaking when he went to pick up his tray so that he could get away from the girl before he burst into tears or fainted or threw up everywhere. "And what you and Dean did to me...it was wrong. I was ready...fuck it you wouldn't understand, Charlie."

"Jesus Christ, Cas. Try me," Charlie pleaded, slapping her hand down on the edge of his tray so that he couldn't pick it up unless he fought against her and dammnit, were all girls this strong? "I mean I know you liked that girl, but really?"

"Charlie, I've only ever liked girls okay?" Castiel forced out through gritted teeth, glancing over to see Becky and Ash trying very desperately to seem like they weren't eavesdropping even though they obviously were. He lowered his voice anyway, "Except for Dean...you just, fuck. You don't know what it's like to meet someone who makes you wish that you were braver. But it was all a joke and you took that part of me that wanted to be brave and made me feel like shit. I should be used to it by now, but I thought since this was a hospital maybe people would understand. Turns out being crazy does not mean you are above being a jerk, now I'd like for you to leave me alone. You and Dean, just leave me alone."

"What was a joke, Cas?!" Charlie exclaimed, grabbing onto his tray harder when he stood up and tried to pull it out of her hand. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Bullshit," he said, abandoning his tray even though he was hungry because the other girl was starting to make a scene and his face was already burning hot enough with embarrassment as it was. Cas needed to leave before Dean got here to see him so upset, he would cry; there wouldn't be any way of getting around it if the other man was there to witness his humiliation. "All of it was a joke; the drawings, the meeting, Dean liking me. I know it was Charlie, so just stop lying already."

Cas spun on his heel and started towards the hallway, intending to shut himself into the nearest room he found that had a lock so that he could really and truly be alone. So far none of the doors had locks, but maybe there was a panic room or something where Jo and Garth would make sure no one bothered him, somewhere where he could break down in peace without it being a spectacle for the rest of the patients.

"No, Cas!" Charlie called, rushing behind him and catching his arm roughly, so much rougher than when she had been asking the night before if he was still meeting Dean. When he faced her, her eyes were full of confusion and concern and so much sincerity that he stopped in front of the cafeteria doors, panting from his unspent emotions because he hadn't been running, that would've just attracted even more attention to himself. "None of it was a joke. I promise, Dean does like you. I'm not lying."

"How can I believe you, Charlie?" he asked, cursing himself for the hope that laced his voice. God, this second time was going to hurt worse than the first, he would die from it for sure, so why was he even grabbing desperately onto the small spark of trust that he still held for the other girl. "I mean, look at him and look at me. Why would he ever like me?"

"I don't know," she said, shrugging slightly before grabbing onto his arm harder when he tried to walk away again. He had known she was fucking with him. "I mean, I don't know because I don't do the whole liking guys thing. You're nice, but you're nice to me in a friend way. To Dean...you're nice in a different way, we can all see it. And he likes you, Cas, I promise. He _like_-likes you."

What is this, the fifth grade?

"Prove it." He said tersely.

"What do you want me to do? Kiss you on his behalf? I don't have any proof, Cas. Dean is super duper gay, if you had come to LGBTQ yesterday then you would've seen him there. I don't know what else I can do," She explained desperately.

"I didn't go because I'm not gay, Charlie." Castiel said defensively, shaking his head more at himself than Charlie because if he liked Dean and his heart was speeding up at the thought of Dean maybe, potentially liking him for real then what did that make him? "And what about the drawings? Missouri has one in her office signed M.W. Last time I checked it's pretty hard to confuse an M with a D."

"Okay, that." Charlie started, pointing at him knowingly before her face fell again and she dropped her hand back down to her side. "That I can't explain, but he did do the drawing of the tea cup and the glasses for you, because of you. Wait, hold on. Don't fucking move, Cas."

She ran down the hallway towards her room and Castiel followed her, mostly because he could feel the eyes of everyone in the cafeteria boring into the back of his head and it was making him queasy. This was so much more public than he had wanted it to be, but what if? What if Dean really did like him and this wasn't all a joke? What was he going to do about how he felt about Dean?

Castiel stopped outside of Dean and Charlie's bedroom door, leaning on the wall next to it and staring at the phone. If Meg called him now, what would he do? What if she told him she loved him too? Did it make him a bad person for wanting to try with Dean, even if it was only while he was in here and he had to go back to his real life once he left? No one would ever have to know and then Cas would finally know, could get this whole thing out of his system so that he could maybe have a normal relationship.

He could hear muffled voices coming from around the corner in the direction of the rec room, but he was too lost in thought, concerned with whatever it was that Charlie might show him to bother with investigating it. It was probably someone playing a video game already, something violent if the noises that sounded like shouting were anything to go by, probably Dick and Crowley since he hadn't seen them yet this morning.

"Here," Charlie said breathlessly, appearing in the doorway with a sketchbook, the one that Lisa had pressed into Dean's hands that first day that the other man had been so excited about seeing her. Castiel couldn't believe that he had forgotten about that. "But don't tell him I showed you this, he would kill me."

Cas nodded and took the sketchbook carefully, opening it to a random page near the front to find a roughly sketched picture of Charlie's Tolkein book laid open face down on the page. The greatest detail was on the cover where a mountain range was drawn; it looked a lot like the drawings that he had gotten, done in pencil like both the mug and the glasses had been. And it wasn't signed either so it was ambiguous too who had done it.

He flipped farther into the book and found an even rougher sketch of a face, but fucking fuck there wasn't any mistaking it. Not with that hair that had been added in random dark, spiky points on top of the mostly blank oval that made up the face. The only thing that was on it was a pair of lips, ones that were so familiar that just looking at them had Castiel touching his own to make sure that Dean had gotten the overexaggerated dip in his top one that he had always thought made him look entirely unkissable just right. Which he had, along with the subtle stubble shaded down and around the jaw.

"Lisa told him to draw something that inspires him," Charlie explained beside him. "And since you got here, that's been stuff involving you."

"Jesus," Castiel whispered, jumping when a man came barreling around the corner from the rec room toward him.

He slapped the sketchbook shut and hurriedly shoved it back into Charlie's hands when Dean came racing around the corner too, wearing Castiel's sweater over a soft looking light grey shirt that had buttons at the throat. The other man stopped short when he saw Castiel, but was promptly bumped into from behind by another person; a tall, gangly looking boy wearing a red polo shirt and khakis who had longish, shaggy brown hair and a look of complete disappointment on his face.

"Move Dean!" The boy said, nudging at Dean until he startled out of his stupor and continued to chase after the gruff looking older man. "Stop, dad. Come back here and talk to him!"

"Fine, Sam." The man said turning around unexpectedly right as Dean caught up to him and stepping close to the other patient to jab a hard finger into Dean's chest. "Dean, you want to know what I think of your progress? Did Missouri tell you that's what this was? Be realistic, it's called a relapse and as long as you can't keep it together you aren't coming around your brother anymore."

"Dad, I can keep it together." Dean objected, stepping back and rubbing at the spot on his chest that the older man had been poking him. "It's better this time, I've got incentive and there's no one here this time wh—"

"It's always someone else's fault, Dean." Dean's dad said, cutting off his son brusquely with a wave of his hand towards the younger boy. "You can't take responsibility for why this is your fault. Shit happens to everyone and you don't see me or Sam trying to kill ourselves all the time."

"But dad, I saw Aza—" the other patient started again, rubbing at his arms through Castiel's sweater.

"Don't say his name, those are you rules, Dean. You make the rest of us walk around on eggshells, always worrying if one of us is going to accidentally _trigger_ you," he spat the word at his son and Castiel winced sympathetically, stopping Charlie who had appeared at her bedroom door next to him and looked about ready to kill someone. "Well, next time you feel like you want to die how about you do us all a favor and finish the fucking job? Instead of half-assing it like everything else you do, come on Sam."

Castiel was horror struck, watching as the boy who must be Dean's younger brother stood by while their father walked away. Sam breathed hard through his nose, shaking his head disgustedly at the older man's back before turning and pulling the other boy in for a tight hug. He patted Dean on the back a couple of times before moving back and shaking his brother lightly by the shoulders, saying something that Cas couldn't hear before trailing miserably after his father, down the hallway and out of sight around the corner.

Dean stepped back towards the wall of the hallway, stumbling into it with a pained sounding whimper that had Castiel moving before he realized that he wasn't holding onto Charlie anymore, but was walking towards the other man and wrapping his arms around him; pressing Dean back against the wall because the patient was sagging like his knees were about to give out underneath him and Cas knew that he wouldn't be able to hold Dean up on his own. It was the crying that did it, broke Cas's heart all over again when he felt Dean shaking with silent tears as he buried his face into his neck and clutched at his back.

"I told him I don't want to die anymore, Cas." Dean sobbed against his skin and Castiel nodded into Dean's hair, he understood he really really did.

He didn't want to die anymore either.

* * *

Author Note: Less angst? Did any of this make anything better? No? I thought so, keep breathing. I'm off tomorrow so *fingers crossed* I'll get a bunch of stuff done. Hang in there babes.


End file.
